Phoenix haboob: massive dust storm rolls into Arizona

Phoenix haboob: An enormous dust storm called a 'haboob' crawled into Phoenix on Monday evening.

|
AP/YouTube
An enormous dust storm called a "haboob” crawled into Phoenix on Monday evening.

An enormous dust storm called a "haboob” rolled into Phoenix on Monday evening, as seen in ethereal photographs shared on social media that night.

No injuries were reported, though the storm did appear to have downed power lines and uprooted trees, the Weather Channel said.

In the images, a massive cloud slips over the Arizona horizon, swallowing up both the desert-red sunset and the seemingly tinker-toy-sized homes below.

Arizona's monsoon season runs from mid-June and to the end of September and brings with it the big thunderstorms that churn up "haboobs,” the Arabic word for the dust storms common to the world’s deserts. The storms happen when thunderstorms create downdrafts, often called downbursts, that send aloft loose dust from the ground. The sediment is buoyed upward as a wall that moves in front of the storm, like illusionist smoke preceding a wizard’s army.

At its height, the Phoenix haboob’s wind gusted at more than 60 miles per hour, the Weather Channel said. Visibility in the area also dropped below a quarter of a mile. Parts of the Phoenix region experienced rain as the following storm moved in, with some of the area under flood watch.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Phoenix haboob: massive dust storm rolls into Arizona
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2013/0827/Phoenix-haboob-massive-dust-storm-rolls-into-Arizona
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe