Tropical Blue Waters Of The Persian Gulf. 2 Cushion

View from space showing the tropical blue waters of the Persian Gulf and then the dust-filled skies as a major dust storm obscures the Gulf and its northern shoreline. Strong north winds often blow across the region in summer, churning up dust from the entire length of the deserts in the Tigris and Euphrates valleys (top left). Dust partly obscures hundreds of kilometres of light-green agricultural lands along these rivers in Iraq (left). A line of thunderstorms rises along the edge of the Zagros Mountains of Iran, and the setting sun casts long shadows from those thunderheads.