Clouds and dust storm on the Sahara, 2014 (photo)

Image obtained from the International Space Station (ISS) flying over Libya on 8 September 2014. This photograph was taken on September 8, 2014, from the International Space Station. The ISS was over Libya at the time, and the astronaut was looking south-southwest over a storm that stretched hundreds of kilometers across the sand seas of the Sahara. In the photo, winds appear to be coming out of the east or northeast (left), and the sun is setting to the west (right in this image). Billowing cumulus and cumulonimbus clouds suggest that a cold, windy front was moving across the desert, perhaps a haboob. The African land surface was almost completely blocked from view by the thick dust; even the lower portions of some clouds were obscured.