File:Dust storm in northern Iran (MODIS 2017-11-30).jpg

English: A weather system that brought rain to Tehran and Iran’s Caspian Sea coastline and Alborz mountains helped raise dust inland in late November, 2017. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired a true-color image of a massive cloud of blowing dust in northern Iran on November 25, 2017.

The camel-colored cloud of dust appears to rise from multiple point sources in the west of Iran’s Great Salt Desert, with each individual plume broadening and coalescing into one broad, rippling veil as they are blown eastward.

The Great Salt Desert, or Dasht-e Kavir, lies south of the Alborz Mountains and ends at the feet of the Zagros Mountains in the south. The city of Tehran lies about 200 miles (300 km) west-northwest from the edge of the arid region. Tens of millions of years ago, a salt-rich ocean likely occupied this region, but at the present time the desert is arid, with copious sand interspersed with rock, flat salt pans, and hard domes of salt. Dust storms are a major natural hazard of the largely uninhabited region.