The sandstorm the size of the United States: Satellite images show massive weather system billowing across Arabian Peninsula. It began on April 1, when high winds whipped up the sandstorm in northern Saudi Arabia before it consolidated and began moving southeastward across the peninsula to eventually cover an area almost as large as the United States, Discover Magazine reported. Along the way it caused chaos across the area’s major cities including Riyadh and Dubai, where some locations were reduced to zero visibility, streets turned a shade of orange and schools were forced shut. The Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies said: ‘The blowing sand reduced surface visibility to near zero at some locations, disrupting ground transportation, air traffic, and also closing schools. The Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies said: ‘The blowing sand reduced surface visibility to near zero at some locations, disrupting ground transportation, air traffic, and also closing schools. ‘Visibility was reduced to 0.1 mile for several hours at Dubai International Airport, which is one of the world’s busiest in terms of volume of flights.’ More than 450 Saudi Arabian Airlines flights were cancelled between Wednesday and Friday – which equals 33 per cent of the carrier’s 1,526 scheduled flights, the Saudi Gazette reported. On top of this, 678 flights were delayed and another 19 rerouted from airports in Jeddah, Riyadh and Dammam. According to the BBC, strong winds aggravated the problem, causing a ‘near complete lack of vision in daylight’, the UAE National Centre for Meteorology and Seismology said. Despite sandstorms being a relatively common occurrence in that part of the world, they are not generally so big and rarely wreak so much havoc. In this instance, the storm also blew across Saudi Arabia’s Empty Quarter – the world’s second largest desert which reaches into Yemen and Oman. Many people took to social media to upload the images they had taken of the sandstorm and share their experiences. Massive sandstorm causes havoc as it tears through Dubai