MSGID: 1:317/3 6394c94e   
   PID: hpt/lnx 1.9.0-cur 2019-01-08   
   TID: hpt/lnx 1.9.0-cur 2019-01-08   
   December 10, 2022 - Mount Etna Stands Above the Dust   
      
      Dust   
       Tweet   
       Share   
      
      Dust briefly clouded the skies over Sicily in early December 2022, yet   
      the Italian island’s iconic volcano still managed to put on a show.   
      
      On December 7, 2022, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer   
      (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite acquired this true-color image of   
      dust blowing over the Mediterranean Sea and southern Italy. The   
      snow-capped peak of Mount Etna is clearly visible poking out above the   
      thick cloud of dust.   
      
      The dust originated in the Sahara Desert, carried by southerly winds   
      known as the scirocco. (In North Africa, these same desert winds are   
      known as “chrom” (hot) or “arifi” (thirsty)). The warm, dry air mass   
      picks up moisture over the Mediterranean as it moves north toward areas   
      of lower pressure. The systems usually produce fog or light rain, which   
      can combine with the dust and fall as mud.   
      
      The scirocco on December 7 failed to deliver any rain to Sicily, and   
      skies that day stayed quite dusty according to Boris Behncke, a   
      volcanologist at the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia,   
      who spoke with NASA’s Earth Observatory’s Kathryn Hansen. The thick   
      haze obscured Behncke’s ground-based view of Mount Etna, 20 kilometers   
      (12 miles) away. However, a close look at the satellite image reveals a   
      snowcapped peak surrounded by a “halo” of clear air. Behncke thinks   
      this suggests that the dust was relatively low in altitude.   
      
      A small eruption has been ongoing at Mount Etna since November 27,   
      2022. The lava is not visible in the true-color satellite image on this   
      page, but it has been detected with sensors on the Sentinel-2 and   
      Landsat satellites that can make observations in the infrared. Another   
      eruption was ongoing at Stromboli, a volcanic island located about 64   
      kilometers (40 miles) north of Sicily. However, any view of the island   
      in this image (top) is completely obscured by dust.   
      
      Image Facts   
      Satellite:  Terra   
      Date Acquired: 12/7/2022   
      Resolutions:  1km (1.4 MB),  500m (3.9 MB),  250m (3 MB)   
      Bands Used: 1,4,3   
      Image Credit: MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC   
      
      
      
   https://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/individual.php?db_date=2022-12-10   
       
   --- up 40 weeks, 5 days, 21 minutes   
    * Origin: -=> Castle Rock BBS <=- Now Husky HPT Powered! (1:317/3)   
   SEEN-BY: 15/0 106/201 114/705 123/120 153/7715 226/30 229/110 111   
   SEEN-BY: 229/112 113 114 317 400 426 428 470 664 700 292/854 298/25   
   SEEN-BY: 305/3 317/3 320/219 396/45   
   PATH: 317/3 229/426