Ever been in a big dust storm?

[firearmsunlimited]

Arizona is a big state and we have some big things here like the Grand Canyon. Even our dust storms are big. This one that hit today was 7,000' tall, 50 miles wide and moved across the valley at 50-59mph.

 

[27145]

Scary incredible! I saw a show about the 1930's Dustbowl on the History Channel. It had video of a dust storm that carried all the way to Washington DC and New York City.

Is that storm normal or is history repeating itself?

 

[Rule 303]

I live in West Texas and the anwser is "Yes".
The biggest I remember was back in the 50s.

Rule 303

 

[yaktamer]

I drove through it today. I was in one of the high-rises in downtown Phoenix about 17 years ago when a really big one came through. You could see transformers on power poles exploding as the front of the cloud came across the valley. Dust was so thick it was like midnight at 6:00 p.m. Really freaks me out since my Dad was killed in (at least then) the biggest accident in U.S. history near Fresno in 1991 as a result of blowing dust.

 

[USAF385]

I've encountered a few haboobs in Iraq and one sandstorm in Afghanistan, but never in the States. Kinda scary, very annoying..... I think I'm still finding sand in my ears.

 

[Onomea]

It seems to me that I have read that one of the reasons the dust storms were so bad in the '30s was that farmers at the time would plough their furrows straight for very long distances, so in a drought the wind would just keep picking up all that dirt, like an avalanche gathering more and more snow as it rolls down the mountain, whereas nowadays fields are plowed with furrows in one direction for a while, and then at a right angle to the first section for a while, and so on, to help mitigate humongous dust storms during a drought...

Re that pic above, I guess about the only thing to do if caught in something like that is to try to cover up and hunker down for the duration. Gad!

 

[27145]

Interesting reading on Wikpedia:

Dust Bowl - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[john3136]

I was at school when this one came through in 1983
melbourne dust storm 1983 - Google Search

 

[dave b]

I remember them in Ft Worth in the 70s and 80s. Thick red West Tex dust.I hated them, you could feel it in your teeth, I haven't seen one in years. I suspect they have changed their plowing and farming methods.

 

[Maximumbob54]

We suffered through them in the sandbox on a regular. It was almost funny how you can get used to just about anything. Daily temps at 140 degrees, so what. Afternoon sandstorm that sandblasts everything and blows stuff around, you better hope you tied everything down right or you get more clean up duty than everyone else. But if you aren't ready for or used to that kind of thing then it can be a real freak out. But then I still see people doing 90 mph down the highway in a thunderstorm, so I guess some people are just shooting for the latest Darwin award.

 

[Stevens]

I have seen several of these in the Sudan when I travelled there on business in the 80s. Very erie to watch them approach looking like a solid swirling wall, but they don't really do any damage, not that there was much worth damaging over there anyway.
Steve W

 

[Len]

Back in the early 60's, we used to get them all the time up in Fargo, North Dakota.

At the time we lived on the western edge of the city, about two blocks from prairie and wheat fields.

Because ND is so, so flat, you could see the dust storms coming for quite a while.

I still remember my mom panicking when she saw them coming, and running out to the clothesline to get her laundry in before it hit.

Every now and then you'd get a secondary static lightning storm in the middle of it, and a creepy yellow/purple sky color.

Haven't seen another in over 50 years, though...

Len

 

[cass]

I live in West Texas and the anwser is "Yes".
The biggest I remember was back in the 50s.

Rule 303

My Dad had a Chevy dealership during the 50's in west Texas, and when these "Rollers" were headed toward town, those cars that couldn't be brought inside, were coated in used motor oil. This was because all the glass and chrome would be blasted off if left untreated. It's amazing the power these storms had.

 

[Peter M. Eick]

Yes. Once in Phoenix back in the 70's when we lived there. Very impressive. It took part of the paint off the old IH.

I saw a much worse one in Libya. It blew in with a major front and you could see it coming for hours. There was nothing you could do but hunker down and wait it out. Truly amazing as it put the one from Phoenix I saw to absolute shame. It went on for about 3 hard hours and then the rains came and really made the desert a mess.

 

[Troystat]

I lived in Phoenix in the early 70's and we had one of those dust storms, I was about 11-12 years old and watched that cloud of dust roll towards me when it was about 100 yards from the house I ran inside. The storm left about an inch of dust all over the yard and house. Never saw another one until I saw that video. I live in the San Francisco bay area now, don't get dust storms, just earth quakes and waves funny politics.
Hope you did not have to much damage.

 

[310Pilot]

I lived in PV and Scottsdale from '59 until 5 years ago, when I moved to the mountains. During the 60s we had one of those roll in from the east every day at 4:30 PM during the monsoon season. You could set your watch by it. We would see that front wave coming all the way from the Superstition Mountains (we lived on the south slope of Mummy Mountain, north of Camelback Mountain), and the dust storm would roll across the Valley knocking out power everywhere and leaving a lot of destruction in its wake. During the stronger storms, it was not unusual for many homes and businesses to lose roofs. Of course, the dust storm was followed by big thunderstorms. Power outages were standard, and we always had a good supply of lanterns and candles at the ready. Driving in them is a bad deal, visibility drops to nothing, and paint, windshields and trim will be badly sandblasted, if you don't have an accident. All the development since the 70s has greatly reduced the frequency and severity of the storms, as there is less dirt to pick up, and somewhat less convection to feed the intense T-storms, the outflow of which causes the dust storms. Big ones still occur frequently around Casablanca Grande, causing large-scale wrecks on I-10.

Those storms also cause a lot of havoc if you're flying -or turbulence, zero visibility and, if one is foolish enough to fly into it, lots of damage to the airplane (and that is in a light storm, hate to see what would result from penetrating a heavier storm, like the one in the original post.

 

[swilli41]

I remember two in Amarillo in the 50's. The first was in '52 or '53. In the early morning, we woke up to a dark calm day. Dust was in the air like face powder and the radio said to turn our porch lights on so the postman could find the houses. We went to school and dust was all over our papers and trying to write in ink (no ball point pens then) was near impossible. It was like that until noon or so. The second dust storm was in '55 I think and it came rolling in from the north....much like the Phoenix picture, only darker. It was also a cold front and the temperature nosedived. Seems like it lasted five or six hours as well. I've seen many, many "vanilla" dust storms in the Panhandle, but those two were truly memorable.

 

[dcxplant]

...I just cleaned my pool that morning

 

[Old 44 Guy]

Don't have 'em in Oregon. No dust here just mud.

 

[Andy the Aussie]

Yep...

2009 Australian dust storm - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I can't believe these idiots drove into it...

YouTube - ‪Broken Hill Dust Storm Australia‬‏