Residents of Phoenix, Arizona, scrambled. People ran for shelter. Panicked drivers pulled their cars over. The local airport grounded flights. Moments later, a huge wall of dust swallowed the city. It was quickly followed by severe thunderstorms that uprooted trees. Tens of thousands of people in the area were left without electricity.
What was this wild weather event? It was a massive dust storm called a haboob. These storms form when powerful winds from thunderstorms lift large amounts of dust and debris into the air. The giant dust cloud that rolled through central Arizona in August was about 5,000 feet tall and at least 50 miles wide. People in the center of the storm couldn’t see even a few feet in front of them.