A method is proposed to estimate the threshold wind speed for dust emissions as a function of soil moisture in arid regions. This method, which is applicable at the local scale, employs a model of the surface heat budget to estimate the spatial distribution of thermal inertia-derived soil moisture (TISM) and an analytical footprint model to estimate dust source areas. It incorporates readily available satellite and meteorological data. The soil moisture inside the dust source area is estimated for individual dust phenomena observed at a synoptic surface observation site, and then, together with the corresponding observed wind speed, the threshold wind speed as a function of soil moisture is found by employing the parametrization of Fecan et al. (Ann Geophys 17:149–157, 1999). This relationship represents the local dust climatology at the observation site, although the data include some outliers. The results show that readily available data for the natural environment can be used, as an alternative to wind-tunnel data, with the parametrization used to derive the threshold wind-speed relation. The derived relation indicates the TISM and wind speed at which the probability of a dust phenomenon is 10%. Moreover, the threshold wind-speed results are not sensitive to the principal footprint-model parameters. The TISM standard error of approximately 0.04 m3 m−3 could significantly affect the results under dry and weak-wind conditions, but this sensitivity can be avoided if the soil clay content or the soil type at the observation point is known.