Haboob Strangles city of Phoenix

Haboob, which is Arabic for ‘strong wind’ is a commonly known word for the residents of
desert of Saharan Africa. Yesterday, this massive dust cloud of the year has engulfed the city of Phoenix cutting off power to 9,000 homes and closing the international airport for 20 minutes. It was traveling at 35 mph, was around 2,000 feet tall and almost 100km wide. These Haboobs only occur in Africa, the Middle East, Australia and Phoenix, Arizona.

Known as the granddaddy of dust storms, the haboob is a rare event and is caused by loose dust being blown upwards in the absence of rain and collecting skywards where it is then propelled by another more distant thunderstorm brewing behind it.

Despite some of the 1.5 million residents of Phoenix objecting to the term haboob being used, meteorologists in the city confirmed that they have been using the Arabic word to describe the massive dust storms for over 30 years.

‘I think what’s going on is that we’ve had a higher frequency of stronger dust storms over the last couple of years and the term has been in play much more because of that,’ said Ken Waters of the Phoenix National Weather Service office to KPHO.

Blowing gusts of up to 50 mph at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport, the haboob is destructive because of the fine dust particles that manage to permeate everywhere during the storm.

Winds were measured as high as 50 miles per hour at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport which closed for 20 minutes because of the dust cloud.

‘The dust gets into everything … It gets into electronics, it gets into every nook and cranny,’ said Penn State University meterologist Fred Gadomski to NPR.

Familiar to millions of movie-goers from films such as ‘The Mummy’ or ‘Hidalgo’, the Haboob was witnessed by Phoenix New Times freelance photographer Andrew Pielage, who watched the storm unfold from a mountain viewpoint.

‘It is one thing to see it from the ground, but when you are on top of a mountain and you still have to look up to see the top of it you really start to grasp the size and magnitude of the haboob,’ said Pielage to the Examiner.com.