PHOENIX — A thick cloud of dust has swallowed Phoenix at sundown three times this summer, covering the city with grit and baffling even longtime residents who can’t remember seeing so many dramatic “haboobs” during a monsoon season.
A 1,000-foot-high wall of dust traveled at least 50 miles into metro Phoenix and neighboring Pinal County on Thursday evening before dissipating.
It turned the skies brown, reduced visibility, created dangerous driving conditions and caused airline flights to be delayed. The storm, known by the Arabic word haboob, coated anything left outside in a thin layer of fine dirt and left some people who walked outside for a minute or two with grit between their teeth.
Danny Shepherd, a deejay who was driving to a gig at a coffee house during the storm, has lived in metropolitan Phoenix since 1989 and can’t recall so many big dust storms in one year.
“They’re typical, but I also think there’s been a lot more this year — big ones and small ones and the haboob, the grand-daddy of them all,” Shepherd said.
National Weather Service meteorologist Ken Waters said the area is experiencing a typical number of dust storms this year, but what sets this season apart from others is the size and power of three of the storms.
Waters said thunderstorms moving through southern Arizona supplied winds of up to 60 mph that stirred up fine dust in the agricultural fields and sent Thursday’s storm to the nation’s sixth-largest city.
“It was a strong dust storm, but nothing on the order of the big one in July,” he said.
