I never thought I’d ever see the kind of dust storm that blew through here last night. It was a scene right out of Lawrence of Arabia, just replace the sand dunes with the palm trees and the camels with houses, garages, and swimming pools.

Courtesy of The Blaze, they call it a “Haboob”!

It was your typical monsoon-y kind of day, a little humid, the clouds building to the east and south, but nothing unusual. What was unusual, however, was looking out my patio towards the southeast at a little after 7 PM and seeing this I headed over to Accuweather, and sure enough, the severe thunderstorm warnings were up. This part of the warning caught my eye:

* AT 751 PM MST…NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE METEOROLOGISTS DETECTED OUTFLOW FROM THUNDERSTORMS TO THE SOUTH WITH GUSTS IN EXCESS OF 60 MPH. THE STRONG WINDS WERE MOVING RAPIDLY NORTHWEST THROUGH AVONDALE…PHOENIX…TEMPE…AND SCOTTSDALE.

PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS…
IF YOU ARE IN THE WARNING AREA…GO INSIDE A STURDY BUILDING. IF YOU ENCOUNTER DENSE BLOWING DUST WHILE DRIVING…PULL OVER AS FAR OFF THE ROADWAY AS POSSIBLE AND PARK. TURN OFF YOUR HEADLIGHTS AND KEEP YOUR FOOT OFF THE BRAKE.

I’m thinking dust storm with a little bit of blowing dust, because that’s all I’ve ever seen since we’ve lived out here. But nothing could have prepared me for what we actually ended up getting (click the Gilbert video link – it’s fourth one down – so you see exactly what I’m talking about). All of a sudden, I’m hearing our wind chimes tinkling like crazy, so I look out the back door and everything – and I do mean everything is gray, fuzzy, obscurred, like you were living inside a big gray cloud. Except that cloud was blowing dirt, blowing hard dirt. Even my favorite streetlight looked like what you’d see in the middle of a heavy snowstorm back in New England, barely visible amidst all the blowing dust. It was like a pea souper in London, or something out of the Dust Bowl years.

After retreating inside to get a surgical mask, I was able to head outside to snap a couple of pictures. First, looking east from my front yard:

Then looking west:

And no, that’s not a dirty camera lens you’re looking at, that’s the flash picking up the dirt flying through the air. It was wild. And as the article said, this wasn’t some little localized event; the storm was fifty – count ’em, fifty! – miles wide. Pretty incredible.

The wind howled and dirt flew for a good hour and a half. Finally, after it started calming down I took a walk down to the mailbox. All the cars on the street were covered with a thick coat of dust. It reminded me of pictures taken after Mt. St. Helens erupted.

But that’s life during monsoon season here in the Valley of the Sun – you never know what you’re going to get.

Tomorrow everything out on the patio gets washed down. It’ll need it.