File:Dust on snow in Romania and Ukraine (MODIS 2018-04-04).jpg

English: In late March 2018, the people of Eastern Europe and Russia found their snow cover had a distinctly orange tint. The color came from vast quantities of Saharan dust that was picked up by strong winds, lofted over the Mediterranean Sea, and deposited on Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, Ukraine, and Russia. Skiers in the Caucasus Mountains snapped photos that looked like they could have come from the Red Planet.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired a true-color image of the dusty snow in Eastern Europe on March 24, 2018. Black lines have been overlain on the image to show the boundaries between countries. Ukraine lies in the east, Romania in the west and Moldova sits between those two countries. A long bank of thin cloud stretches across the three countries. The snow south of the cloud bank is especially dusty and appears dark rather than the very bright white of typical snow.

In Greece, Crete, and Cyprus, the airborne particles significantly reduced visibility for days, and people described tasting dust as they walked outside, news media reported. Authorities cautioned children, the elderly, and people with respiratory diseases to stay indoors as much as possible. According to several news accounts, the Athens Observatory called this event one of the largest dust deposits on record in Greece.

Dust storms are common in the Sahara in the springtime, as the weather changes with the seasons. Large dust events tend to occur about every five years, though multiple observers described this one as particularly intense.