Phoenix Dust Storm: Video of Doomsday Scenes in Arizona

Russia Today ^ | 7/6/2011 | RT

[Sprite518]

hese amazing pictures from the United States show a wall of dust moving through the city of Phoenix in Arizona. Sandstorms like this happen during the region's monsoon season, which is underway. They occur over desert land and can reach thousands of feet into the air, spurred by strong winds. The dense cloud dramatically reduced visibility, grounding flights at a major airport and leaving thousands without electricity.

[discostu]

They just like the “boob” part.

[DoughtyOne]

Okay, that does make sense, nothing being in there...

[discostu]

We’ve had monsoons in southern AZ for as long as I’ve been here, and Ford was still in the White House then. Monsoons are actually a very specific type of storm system, which is why we have monsoons not humidity flow.

[moehoward]

I remember them well. We’d get good and powdered, then just enough rain would fall to make everything mud coated. The pool would take couple of weeks to clear up.

[moehoward]

I got caught in one years ago near Palm Springs. It was awful. Couldn’t pull over, cars and trucks flying by. It was truly a miracle there wasn’t a pile up.

What came out of that air filter was astounding.

[TheOldLady]

He’s the smartest man in show business.

[DoughtyOne]

Not to be argumentative, but what is the storm system like then? From the way I’ve seen it used, it’s generally associated with humidity. It’s been described as hot humid air coming in from the South that contributes to thunder storms and flash flood type activity. I’ve seen it referenced that way for over forty years, not as a monsoon until recently.

[Salamander]

And dust-free.

[HiJinx]

Ah, I’m sorry to hear that!
I bet it is...

[ArrogantBustard]

So Long, Its Been Good To Know Yuh
(Dusty Old Dust)
Words and Music by Woody Guthrie

I’ve sung this song, but I’ll sing it again,
Of the place that I lived on the wild windy plains,
In the month called April, county called Gray,
And here’s what all of the people there say:

CHORUS: So long, it’s been good to know yuh;
So long, it’s been good to know yuh;
So long, it’s been good to know yuh.
This dusty old dust is a-gettin’ my home,
And I got to be driftin’ along.

A dust storm hit, an’ it hit like thunder;
It dusted us over, an’ it covered us under;
Blocked out the traffic an’ blocked out the sun,
Straight for home all the people did run,
Singin’:

CHORUS

We talked of the end of the world, and then
We’d sing a song an’ then sing it again.
We’d sit for an hour an’ not say a word,
And then these words would be heard:

CHORUS

Sweethearts sat in the dark and sparked,
They hugged and kissed in that dusty old dark.
They sighed and cried, hugged and kissed,
Instead of marriage, they talked like this:
“Honey...”

CHORUS

Now, the telephone rang, an’ it jumped off the wall,
That was the preacher, a-makin’ his call.
He said, “Kind friend, this may the end;
An’ you got your last chance of salvation of sin!”

The churches was jammed, and the churches was packed,
An’ that dusty old dust storm blowed so black.
Preacher could not read a word of his text,
An’ he folded his specs, an’ he took up collection,
Said:

So long, it’s been good to know yuh;
So long, it’s been good to know yuh;
So long, it’s been good to know yuh.
This dusty old dust is a-gettin’ my home,
And I got to be driftin’ along.

[discostu]

There’s three major parts of a monsoon:
1 - They’re seasonal, there’s a certain chunk of the calendar when they happen, and outside of that window the region has “normal” (compared to below) storms
2 - they blow through in the same pattern over and over, in Tucson monsoon storms start in the SE corner around Rita and I-10 and leave town a few hours later at I-10 and Ina. Back in the 70s and 80s the timing of monsoons was so regular you can actually get an idea for where somebody lived by when they say monsoons hit, in the mid-80s I moved from the 1PM stripe (SE of town) to the 2:30 stripe (south end mid-town). Sadly they aren’t quite as clock work as they used to be, though our storm monday was right on the old cycle.
3 - and this ones not as globally universal but generally there’s a change in the wind pattern. Tucson’s wind pattern direction doesn’t change too much, largely because of how the mountains box, but the intensity changes quite dramatically during monsoons, there’s a reason we say the monsoon BLOW through, the storms are violent... and fun so long as you’re in a safe place to watch.

I moved to Tucson in November of 1975, just a kid then. One of the first pieces of advice my mom got from neighbors was to make sure I was home by 1 in the summers so I’d be safe from the wind and lightning that precede the monsoons. And that’s almost an exact quote, definitely they called it monsoons all the way back then. Because they hit so hard and in the afternoon when everybody is awake to watch the monsoons are a big part of Tucson culture. Other parts of the SW they might just be hot humid air from the South, but here it’s an event, it’s a part of life, when the temps get high we start keeping an eye to the SE looking for the telltale clouds. Which might be the 4th part of it being a monsoon: the local culture has embraced it.

[miele man]

All that dust wasn’t caused by a monsoon but by the hordes of illegals running north.

[TheOldLady]

And cool as can be.

[DoughtyOne]

Thanks for the information. One other poster made a much shorter but similar response. Having not lived at that very spot, it is interesting.

Here in Los Angeles, they haven’t referenced it to monsoonal flow as I recall. When other portions of the same weather patterns come through your area though, with the geographic dynamics there, they have been referenced in that manner.

[discostu]

I didn’t think they got all the way to LA, the coastal breeze is supposed to push them back so they get close but not quite. So it makes sense that there it’s just humidity. Last time I was in the LA area during summer all the talk was the inversion layer. I like monsoons better.

[Red Boots]

I went to the U of A in the 80’s, and I'll never forget my first monsoon season. I watched hail bouncing up off the grass, and the lightining and the torrents of rain. And afterwords; the sweetly humid air, fresh with the smell of creosote, and chalky smell of clay soil, the washes running brown, the suarguos and other plants just soaking it up and swelling with water and happiness. And above it all, the buzz of the cicadas.

I loved it immediately, and I still look forward to it very summer, even though I live a bit further north, and it's not as intense. When we have our first week of hot weather, I look eagerly forward to the shift of winds. When they start blowing from the south, I know it's near.

[DoughtyOne]

I think that’s a reasonable perception, but we do get the warm humid air flow from down south at times. Most of the time our weather comes from the North West and sometimes the West South West.

At other times, we get the weather patterns that see hot humid air from weather patterns down off the cost of Mexico carrying warm humid tropical air.

We only get that a few times per year. It sounds like you may get more.

[discostu]

And that 30 degree drop. Yeah there’s nothing like desert storms. I know a few people that were here for 1 storm and decided to stay. Saw a stack forming in the SE on the way back from the gym, might have some action today.

[discostu]

On a good year we get it close to every day in July, on a really good year we get it a couple times a week in August. Most of our annual rainfall is from the monsoon. Which is part of why it’s almost a religious experience here, once you go native here the coming of rain is a big deal.

[DoughtyOne]

Sure, that makes sense. Good luck this season.