Dark Skies over Opportunity (2) - Sol 1225

Pictures from the orbiter's Mars Color Imager show the storm is regional in extent, and includes several local areas of especially high dust activity. The storm has been moving Eastward and toward Mid-Latitudes, and is now also causing an increase in atmospheric dust at Spirit's location, on the opposite side of the Planet, at Gusev Crater.
Dust levels at Gusev remain much lower than at the Opportunity site, however.

Both rovers take daily measurements estimating the amount of dust in the atmosphere. The less dust the better, because it means more sunlight reaches the rover's solar panels, which power the vehicles. In the last week, Opportunity has broken its dust record, with the opacity level rising from 1.0 to 3.3. Solar array energy on Opportunity dropped from 765 watt-hours to 402 watt-hours over the same period of time.