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March 30, 2026

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Saharan dust spreads across northwestern Africa on March 30, 2026, in these images acquired in the morning (left) by the MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) on NASA’s Terra satellite and in the afternoon (right) by the VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite) on NOAA-21.

In early spring 2026, a dry, dust-laden wind known as the harmattan swept across northwestern Africa. Cold temperatures, high winds, and blowing dust prompted officials to issue an alert for several regions of Morocco due to the low visibility and harsh conditions.

Satellites tracked the wall of dust over the course of the day on March 30 as it moved southwest from the Sahara Desert and toward the Atlantic Ocean. The left image, captured by NASA’s Terra satellite, shows the dust at about 10:00 Universal Time (11 a.m. local time in Morocco). The NOAA-21 satellite captured the right image about four hours later.

Meteosat-12, a satellite operated by the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT), captured another view of the dust storm. The geostationary weather satellite showed the dust’s movement as it moved closer to the Canary Islands.

According to Spain’s state meteorological agency (AEMET), the harmattan winds blow from the northeast between November and April, often producing dust storms as winds lift dust particles from the Sahara. During the March 30 event, AEMET noted that conditions were right for a harmattan surge, which happens when winds get stronger near the ground with the passing of a cold front. That day, winds converged perpendicular to the High Atlas mountain range before shifting southwest.

Forecasts called for the Saharan dust to ultimately engulf the Canary Islands, triggering what islanders know as calima. The dust episode was expected to worsen air quality and visibility across the islands through April 1. A separate storm earlier in March also sent dust toward the Canaries, along with another plume that dispersed widely across Europe.

Researchers using NASA data have previously reported that the most intense Saharan dust storms occur in the spring, when dust is typically lifted from the sand seas, or ergs, of central North Africa and areas along the Mediterranean coast. In the warmer months, another peak occurs in the central Sahara.

NASA Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin, using MODIS and VIIRS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE, GIBS/Worldview, and the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS). Story by Kathryn Hansen.

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March 30, 2026: Terra MODIS

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March 30, 2026: NOAA-21 VIIRS

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References & Resources

• AEMET Divulga via X (2026, March 31) These satellite images show a surge of harmattan, a dust storm (haboob) generated by the harmattan wind from the region. Accessed March 31, 2026.
• CIRA Satellite Library (2026, March 30) Daily loop from: Meteosat-12. Accessed March 31, 2026.
• Fiedler, S. et al. (2015) The importance of Harmattan surges for the emission of North African dust aerosol. Geophysical Research Letters, 42 (21), 9495-9504.
• HESPRESS (2026, March 30) Morocco issues orange alert for cold weather, strong winds, and dust storms. Accessed March 31, 2026.
• NASA Earth Observatory (2026, March 12) Dust Outbreak Reaches Europe. Accessed March 31, 2026.
• Saleh, S.A. et al. (2025) A preliminary assessment of the spatial and temporal patterns of sand and dust storms over the Sahara. Scientific African, 28 (e02729).

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NASA astronaut Jessica Meir took this photo of an Artemis program patch floating in the International Space Station’s cupola. She posted it on X on March 30, 2026, with the following caption: “Our work on the @Space_Station has provided the foundation to explore further, preparing us to return humans to the Moon this week. Stay tuned as we enter the @NASAArtemis era! Expedition 74 will certainly be keeping a close watch. Godspeed, Artemis II!”

Image credit: NASA/Jessica Meir

Communities worldwide rely on reservoirs for drinking water, hydroelectric power, irrigation, and more. These critical freshwater resources are affected by seasonal and long-term changes; water levels in reservoirs can dip during hot summer months or due to prolonged drought, or can flood after a particularly strong storm. Despite their importance, there are key gaps in our knowledge of reservoir structure and dynamics. Two recent papers use Landsat data to help fill in those gaps. 

Researchers from the University of Southampton used Landsat data to identify where water advanced or retreated from 1984 to 2022, creating the first global dataset pinpointing the exact year of permanent surface water changes—such as when a reservoir formed or a stream dried up. The study can track changes in streams as narrow as 30m and lakes as small as 900m². In a separate study, Texas A&M University researchers used Landsat data to build a global bathymetry dataset called ‘3D-LAKES’ that enables water managers to estimate reservoir storage capacity.

The above animation shows the Amistad Reservoir on the border of Texas and Mexico. It uses a natural-color Landsat image from 1985 overlaid onto a Copernicus Digital Elevation Model (DEM) and bathymetric data from the 3D-LAKES dataset. Vertical relief is exaggerated by a factor of four to emphasize topographic features and landforms. The reservoir is jointly managed by the U.S. and Mexico through the International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC) for flood control, recreation, and hydroelectric power. Despite its importance to the two countries, the reservoir is slowly shrinking. The surface water transitions dataset shows the water levels retreating in recent decades, with significant recessions between 2012 and 2016. The 3D-LAKES dataset reveals the underwater shape of the reservoir. Together, these datasets complement the in situ water level and conditions data collected throughout the year. 

Tracking Surface Water Transitions

Human communities both shape and are shaped by water. We divert rivers, build reservoirs, and construct artificial islands, while natural forces—storms, meandering rivers, and rising seas—reshape our waterways and coastlines. With satellite data as an important tool to study ecosystem dynamics, researchers have begun to build a more comprehensive global understanding of where water is and how it shifts over time. In their water transitions study, the University of Southampton team focused specifically on permanent changes in lakes, rivers, coastlines, and other water bodies worldwide. 

Looking at long-term changes in surface water can help scientists understand drivers of change, said Gustavo Willy Nagel, lead researcher on the paper. Knowing when a lake began receding helps water managers investigate whether drought, irrigation, or other forces caused the decline. 

Scientists, policymakers, and water managers can explore the interactive dataset that Nagel and his team created to visualize changes close to home as well as stark global impacts such as the drying of the Aral Sea, the lakes created by melting glaciers in Tibet, and the building of the Palm Islands in Dubai.

Assessing long-term changes in surface water presents a key challenge, as surface water is extremely dynamic. Seasonal fluctuations and climatic forces mean that rivers, lakes, and coastlines are changing all the time. To identify permanent water changes while excluding seasonal fluctuations, the researchers ran two algorithms. The first detected whether the water body was advancing or retreating over the study period using the Modified Normalized Difference Water Index (mNDWI), which uses the shortwave-infrared (SWIR) instead of the near-infrared (NIR) band. The second algorithm used the Green_Red Normalized Difference Water Index (grNDWI)—an index proposed by the research team—to identify the precise year that the water body transitioned. A change was considered “permanent” if it did not revert to its previous condition during the study period of 1984 to 2022. 

“The dataset is showing, for every location on the planet, areas where water advanced or retracted and the year of that change,” said Nagel.

Visualizing Lakes in 3D

Landsat can help us monitor surface water. But what about what’s under the surface? 

In a study published in Scientific Data in October 2025, researchers from Texas A&M University fused Landsat and ICESat-2 data to create bathymetry maps for half a million global lakes and reservoirs. The research team, led by Huilin Gao, used Landsat imagery to calculate the surface area of water bodies, delineate where water meets land, and track how water extent changes over time. Then, they combined  laser altimetry from the ICESat-2 satellite to infer the underwater bathymetry of water bodies. With these measurements, the scientists refined area-elevation relationships, a key metric for understanding how water storage changes with water level.

The resultant dataset, dubbed 3D-LAKES, is static, as bathymetry does not tend to change significantly year to year. “This dataset can support many applications, from monitoring water storage to refining hydrological models,” said Chi-Hsiang Huang, the study’s lead author.

3D-LAKES can be used in combination with Landsat-based maps—like the surface transition research or the popular Global Surface Water dataset—to help water resource managers assess the volume of water held in a reservoir or lake. This allows them to evaluate flood risk, map habitat, or calculate how much water is available during a particularly dry season. Researchers can also track changing water volume over time, helping understand long-term trends in water storage. 

Measuring underwater topography has historically been expensive and impractical at global scales. The 3D-LAKES dataset now provides researchers and managers with crucial bathymetric data for lakes and reservoirs worldwide. “With this new dataset, we can achieve a more comprehensive understanding of the impacts of lakes and reservoirs on regional climatology, water security, and ecosystem services,” said Gao. Both studies provide water and land managers with unprecedented tools for resource management and planning—from the Amistad Reservoir to the Australian Outback to the Brazilian Amazon.

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February 28, 2026

March 29, 2026

February 28, 2026March 29, 2026

February 28, 2026

March 29, 2026

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Acquired with the VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite) on the NOAA-21 satellite on February 28 and March 29, 2026, these false-color images (bands M11-I2-I1) show grasslands in western Nebraska before and after several wildland fires spread through the area. NASA Earth Observatory/Lauren Dauphin.

On the afternoon of March 12, 2026, a wildland fire ignited in Morrill County, Nebraska. Within 12 hours, high winds had propelled flames approximately 70 miles (110 kilometers) east-southeast across the prairie. The Morrill fire would burn over 640,000 acres (260,000 hectares) within a week, becoming the largest wildfire in the state’s history.

This image (right) shows the extent of recently burned areas near the North Platte River in western Nebraska on March 29. By this time, authorities reported the Morrill fire was 100 percent contained. However, crews were working to contain two smaller blazes immediately to the northeast, the Ashby and Minor fires, which ignited early on March 26. For comparison, the left image was acquired on February 28, before the fires. Both are false-color to better distinguish the burned areas.

The fires occurred amid an active start for wildfires in the U.S. in 2026. The National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) reported that 15,436 fires had burned 1,510,973 acres nationwide as of March 27. That’s far higher than the 10-year average—9,195 fires burning 664,792 acres—for the same period.

The Great Plains have been particularly prone to fire in early 2026. Exceptionally dry fuels contributed to rapid fire growth and other unusual fire behavior for the time of year, according to the NIFC. Throughout the winter, much of the region saw warmer and windier-than-average conditions, as well as less than 50 percent of average precipitation over a 90-day period, leading to low soil moisture and grass fuels that were primed to burn.

The fires in western Nebraska affected large areas of ranch and pasture lands, destroyed homes, barns, and fences, and injured or killed livestock, according to news reports. The Morrill fire also burned much of the Crescent Lake National Wildlife Refuge in the Nebraska Sandhills, an area of grasslands, wetlands, and dunes used by migratory birds. Despite the fires, reports indicate that hundreds of thousands of sandhill cranes are still making their annual migration through the Platte River valley.

NASA Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin, using VIIRS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE, GIBS/Worldview, and the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS). Story by Lindsey Doermann.

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February 28, 2026

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March 29, 2026

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References & Resources

• InciWeb (2026) Morrill Fire. Accessed March 30, 2026.
• National Interagency Fire Center (2026, March 27) National Fire News. Accessed March 30, 2026.
• National Interagency Fire Center (2026, March 20) Fuels and Fire Behavior Advisory: Northern and Central Great Plains. Accessed March 30, 2026.
• Nebraska Public Media (2026, March 30) ‘It’s like a death’: Grief, hope and resilience after fire ravages Nebraska Sandhills. Accessed March 30, 2026.
• The Washington Post (2026, March 24) Wildfires rip through unusual parts of U.S., raising fears of a brutal season. Accessed March 30, 2026.

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From left to right, NASA astronauts Andre Douglas, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronauts Jenni Gibbons, NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman, and CSA astronaut Jeremy Hansen pose for a photo before the Artemis II crew proceed to a media event on March 27, 2026. Douglas and Gibbons are the backup crew members for the mission; they would join the crew if a NASA or CSA astronaut, respectively, is unable to take part in the flight.

Artemis II is NASA’s first crewed mission under the Artemis program and will launch from the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It will send Wiseman, Glover, Koch, and Hansen on an approximately 10-day journey around the Moon. Among other objectives, the agency will test the Orion spacecraft’s life support systems for the first time with people and lay the groundwork for future crewed Artemis missions.

Image credit: NASA/Josh Valcarcel