Monsoon and dust storms go hand in hand in our desert climate, but this year with so little rain there seems to be a lot more dust and dirt to fuel the storms giving us a season of haboobs.
One of the biggest haboobs had a wall of dust engulfing the city a little over a month ago, then just this week we saw a brown cloud emerge again sweeping over the valley.
"It was a pretty interesting day, we had some very fast developing storms," said Ken Waters, a meteorologist with the Phoenix National Weather Service.
While the impressive act of nature has got our attention this year because of their size, Waters said the storms are not that odd of an occurrence.
"In reality this is typical to get several of these during a good monsoon season, so this is not out of the ordinary. What is different is the severity or the magnitude of the storms," said Waters.
While a dust storm in the desert is not rare, these mile high walls of dust are, especially this late in the monsoon when rain usually helps keep the dust down.
However, this year the storms seem to more about wind than rain as seen during Thursday's haboob.
"We got some really strong wind reports out there, like 50, 60, 70 mph winds and that is what brought down about 70 power polls," said Waters.
Luckily for those who are hoping this weeks wall of dust was our last, the good news is dust fighting rain should on its way as we transition into the end of the monsoon.
Copyright 2011 KPHO. All rights reserved.
