The Phoenix Haboob

I am sure many of you have seen the video of the massive dust storm moving through Phoenix, AZ last week, but if you haven't seen the video here it is:

The Phoenix Haboob of July 5th, 2011 from Mike Olbinski on Vimeo.

These dust storms form when rain from thunderstorms evaporates. Now when rain evaporates the air cools and when the air above the ground cools down it becomes very dense or really heavy. (Warm air is not very heavy and warm air rises while cold air is heavy and sinks towards the ground.)

So when you cool really warm air very quickly it causes the air to rush downwards towards the grounds sometimes at very high speeds. This then creates strong winds and the winds then blows the dust on the ground around causing a massive dust storm like we saw last week in Phoenix.

The dust can reach 1500 to 3000 ft and dust storms can travel up to a 100 miles. So definitely cool to watch from afar but nothing you would ever want to be stuck in the middle of!