Video captures massive 'haboob' hitting Phoenix

[Bob Of Burleson]

By David Clark Scott
The Christian Science Monitor

It's haboob season again in Arizona.

On Friday, a massive dust storm - some 3,000 feet high - swept across Phoenix and was captured on VIDEO by the local Sky 12 TV helicopter.

The dust storm - and nearby thunderstorms - knocked out power to as many as 12,000 residents, reported Azcentral.com. By 9 p.m. power had been restored to almost all residents in the affected area, reported Salt River Project.

Arizona's monsoon season runs from mid-June and to the end of September and brings with it the big thunderstorms that churn up "haboobs,” the Arabic word for the dust storms common to the world’s deserts. The storms happen when thunderstorms create downdrafts, often called downbursts, that send aloft loose dust from the ground. The sediment is buoyed upward as a wall that moves in front of the storm, like illusionist smoke preceding a wizard’s army.

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[Grassman]

Ok since when the hell did we start calling a dust storm a haboob? Geeze....