Spring is peak dust storm season in China’s Tarim Basin, particularly in the southern part of the dry, barren depression. It’s a time of year when regional wind patterns shift in ways that cause winds and storm systems to sweep in from the northwest. In early spring, when landscapes in this region are especially dry and have minimal vegetation, land surfaces warm rapidly under the Sun’s heat every morning, fueling convection that can help loft dust upward by the afternoon.
The image above shows dust sweeping across large swaths of the basin on March 27, 2025. The image was acquired at 12:23 p.m. local time (04:23 Universal Time) by the MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) on NASA’s Terra satellite. A more detailed view (below), captured on the same day about an hour later by the OLI (Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 8, shows a gap in a dust layer in the southern part of the basin. Visible through it is part of the Tekilik Shan, a subrange of the Kunlun Mountains with several snow-covered peaks that reach elevations of more than 4,000 meters (13,000 feet).
The shapes of the fingerlike dust protrusions appear to reflect the underlying terrain. The protrusions line up with underlying valleys, which help control the flow of airborne dust. Dust may have been “self-lofting” over the course of the day. This can occur as the Sun heats recently mobilized near-surface dust, fueling pockets of convection that help lift dust particles higher into the atmosphere, explained Ralph Kahn, an atmospheric scientist at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder and scientist emeritus at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
Supporting this interpretation, geostationary observations from Japan’s Himawari-9 satellite show dust creeping upward into the Tekilik Shan in hourly increments throughout the day before eventually obscuring the view of the mountains in the late afternoon. A similar process occurred on other days during the late-March outbreak of dust, including March 28 and 29.
Since the early 2000s, researchers have observed a 1.5 percent decrease in the amount of atmospheric dust detected by MODIS sensors in this region each year. “The trend was likely linked to shifts in the spring—March, April, and May,” not in other seasons, said Hongbin Yu, a research scientist at NASA Goddard. The change is likely related to changes in wind speed or shear, vegetation cover, or soil moisture, he added.
The Takla Makan Desert is one of the driest, most barren expanses on Earth. Flanked by mountain ranges on three sides and parched by the resulting rain shadow, parts of the Tarim Basin receive no more than 10 millimeters (0.4 inches) of rain per year.
Dust storms can lead to public health problems in populated areas downwind by transporting small particles, bacteria, and viruses that infiltrate human respiratory systems. Dust storms can also affect Earth’s climate by scattering and absorbing incoming solar radiation and changing the properties of clouds.
NASA Earth Observatory images by Michala Garrison, using MODIS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE and GIBS/Worldview and Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Story by Adam Voiland.
