English: April 11, 2025 April 6, 2024

Extreme winds whipped across parts of northern China in mid-April 2025, driving dust storms, knocking over trees, and forcing flight cancellations.

According to Xinhua, the Chinese state news agency, gale-force winds whipped across the region beginning on April 11, first lashing Inner Mongolia, Hebei, Beijing and Ningxia, driven by a “powerful cold vortex moving southeast from Mongolia”. Winds as high as 92 miles per hour (41.4 meters/second) and steeply dropping temperatures were anticipated through April 13. By April 12, more than 690 flights had been cancelled at Beijing’s two major airports, tourist attractions were closed, trains were delayed, and millions of people had been advised to remain inside, according to several media outlets. Snow and hail were reported in western and north-central China as the vortex lashed the country.

On April 11, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured a true-color image of the violent winds carrying a thick layer of dust across the Badain Jaran Desert. The April 11 image is paired with a second Aqua MODIS image acquired on April 6, which was a more normal day in the Badain Jaran.

The Badain Jaran Desert spans about 19,300 square miles (50,000 sq. km) in western Inner Mongolia, China and is part of the larger Gobi Desert. It is filled with massive sand dunes and, along with the Taklamakan Desert to its west and the rest of the Gobi Desert, is a rich source of dust that may spread across China, North and South Korea, and Japan.