Haboobies
Much has been made in the news of the crazy dust storms ravaging Phoenix over the past several weeks. Mile high walls of dirt and sand are undoubtedly not a nice thing, but are part of life in the area during monsoon season. And they are most certainly not (…yet) a sign the world is coming to a slow, region-by-region end.
Having a wife born and raised in Phoenix and family members still down there, I hear some complaints but also a lot of “This happens every summer. What’s the big deal?” Much of it is the tendency of news outlets to over complicate things for the purpose of a “disaster porn” type lead piece. People love destruction and controversy. And dust storms raise a bit of both.
But in all the hype, it’s good to remember the storms are part of a yearly cycle and not jump to conclusions. Further (very informative) reading on the subject can be found here. It gets a bit technical at times, but the real point of it all is here:
As the rain from these thunderstorms evaporates into the hot, dry desert air, it cools and accelerates downward to the surface. This is known as a microburst. Microbursts, while only a mile or two across, can be accompanied by damaging wind gusts exceeding 70 mph. As these gusts strike the desert and valley floors, a dust storm, or haboob, can occur. Dust storms like this can reach great heights and travel dozens of miles away from the thunderstorm. Within the dust storm, visibilities can drop to near zero.
The desert Southwest is, climatologically, in the “peak” of the monsoon currently. Soon, more rain will be associated with these storms and the dust threat will subside. Past monsoons (2009 in particular) caused 7 dust storms in the Phoenix area according to preliminary climate data. This is in stark contrast to the summer of 2010 in which there was only 1 instance of blowing dust reported at Phoenix Sky Harbor. There have been 5 already this month so it has been suddenly rather active after a slow start to this monsoon year. It’s still no cause for alarm though. Just sit back and enjoy the “destruction.”
