A thick plume of dust blew over the eastern Mediterranean Sea on Friday, extending northward from Egypt toward Turkey in a giant, counter-clockwise arc. Between Egypt and Turkey, dust clogged skies over Israel, the West Bank, and Cyprus. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this natural-color image of the dust plume the same day.

The North Cyprus Environmental Protection Office has advised that children and elderly people do not go outside unless essential and warned that outdoor workers take precautions until the high altitude dust cloud has passed.