‘It was that bad’: Powerful haboob sweeps through Phoenix

PHOENIX — A towering wall of dust rolled through metro Phoenix on Monday with storms that left thousands of people without power and temporarily grounded flights at the city airport.

Motorists hurried home through strong winds and rain as the dust storm, commonly referred to as a haboob, approached. Haboobs are associated with collapsing thunderstorms and strong winds and can make driving on roads nearly impossible.

Bernae Boykin Hitesman was driving her son and daughter, ages 9 and 11, home from school Monday afternoon in Arizona City, about 59 miles southeast of Phoenix, when she had to quickly pull over as the dust storm engulfed her car.

“I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face if I put my hand outside,” she said. “It was that bad.”

Boykin Hitesman said she could taste the dust and feel the strong wind rattling her car until it finally passed about 15 minutes later.

“I was nervous,” she said. “My kids were really, really scared, so I was trying to be brave for them.”

The haboob cut visibility to a quarter-mile across metro Phoenix but had cleared up by Monday evening. Phoenix has been drier than usual during the summer rainy season, while parts of southeast and north-central Arizona have had a fair amount of rain, said Mark O’Malley, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Phoenix.

“But that’s typical for a monsoon, very hit and miss,” he said.

The forecast for metro Phoenix calls for a 40% chance of rain Tuesday before drying out, O’Malley said.

More than 15,000 people were still without power Monday night in Arizona, most of whom were in Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, according to PowerOutage.us.

Planes at the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport were temporarily grounded due to “extreme weather,” Heather Shelbrack, the airport’s deputy aviation director for public relations, said in an email. By Monday evening, the ground stop had been lifted, with flights delayed about 15 to 30 minutes.

Traffic lights were also out in neighboring Gilbert, and the storm toppled trees across town, according to the city’s police department.

Richard Filley, a retired university professor who lives in Gilbert, said the dust storm caused the trees to sway hard and knocked the bird feeders to the ground. Fine dust found its way through “every little crack and space” into the house, he said.

“The windstorm part of it, I’m glad it’s gone,” he said. “You look at the photos of haboobs and they are a spectacular natural phenomenon. They are kind of beautiful in their own way.”