haboob two

Not one HABOOB, but two, and in the same month even. We discovered this one was happening earlier, while it was still daylight, so we were able to see it rolling in. We were just enjoying the pool again, so this was not a welcome sight.

The first one was definitely bigger as you can see in this great time lapse video. When we first started seeing the news clips and videos after the first one, the girls both said "just like Hidalgo!" And if you click on both of those highlighted words you can see what they mean. I've heard the one last night was 3,000 feet high. Fortunately, it seemed to have lost its gusto and didn't dump as much dust. At least in our area, anyway.

I did get a few photos. This is what it looked like when we first went outside. There were plenty of storm clouds brewing but you can see the dust cloud at the horizon:

Here it is with a little zoom on the lens: Hidlago? Yes?

A few minutes later:

A view from the back yard. You can see the edge of the Haboob just to the right of the palm trees:

The rest of the sky was really turning and rolling:

In the opposite direction of the Haboob...a rainbow.

Later... as it started to get closer...you could see the dust was starting to close in on us:

And the last shot I took before the sun went down. We went in and ate dinner, lamenting as to how everything would look in the morning and how we would be faced with another week of pool cleaning.

Here are two shots to compare. Haboob on the horizon. Mountain.
Haboob just beginning to surround our house. No mountain.

Morning appeared bright and sunny. And the good news? The pool is clear. I guess it just swirled around us and only left a very light dusting. Yay!

We survived the Haboobs!

haboob

It is Arabic for "strong wind". It came through Phoenix on tuesday night. We saw images like this one on the news and were amazed. It blew through here after dark, so we did not see the full impact of the rolling dust. All we could see was the dust in the wind. Lots and lots of dust. It was really weird. Here is a picture I copied from the internet.

It left a big mess in its path. Today, two days later we are still cleaning up. I think the pool will take a few more days to filter it all out. We had to put extra treatments in to ward off bacteria that they say will grow pretty quickly in your pool. Also, I learned that this phenomenon can cause Valley Fever. Now, that is just awful.

Here are a few photos that I took. This is the palm tree/pool view on a normal day:

Here it is after the haboob.
This is another night shot during the "storm". I did not spend much time outside for obvious reasons.
Here is the pool yesterday morning.
This is what the sky looked like for most of the day. No sign of the mountains at all.
This is the coating of dust that is on everything! I commented..."you know if this was a snowstorm it would all just melt away."
This is another one of those... "I've lived here all my life and have never seen anything like this before!" We have heard comments like that already. (Put it on the list with the gila monster sightings.) We, at least, did not lose our power as did some in Phoenix. A whole night without air conditioning after that would have been miserable. The floors inside the house had an extra layer of dust yesterday, so they got a thorough cleaning. It looks like I will need to do it again today based on the foot prints I see across the floor.

I guess we can say it is kind of cool that we experienced something that will be talked about for a long time.

Haboob.

Funny name.

Strange experience.