A couple of days ago, I was busy cooking dinner when I got a call from my husband who was on his way home from work.  He said that there was a haboob on the way.

Okay, some of you may be wondering what the heck a ‘haboob’ is.  Well, the word ‘haboob’ is an Arabic word that describes a dust or sand storm.  Here in the Phoenix area, we don’t have sand, so our haboobs are made up of dust.

Now dust storms aren’t too unusual during our summer monsoon season in the Southwest, but the one that was coming, according to my husband was monstrous.  So, I decided it would be a good opportunity to blog about it, so I went outside with my son, Kai, to watch its approach and take pictures to share with you.

At first, it doesn’t look like much, but as you progress down through the pictures, you can see the progression of the haboob.

You can just see the dust cloud in the distance behind the homes.

Okay, at this point, my camera battery died.  So, I went inside to get our other camera only to find that its battery was also dead.  I couldn’t believe it…..this was a once in a lifetime weather experience and I had no camera!

But, then my husband arrived home from work and rescued me by taking pictures with his iPhone just as the storm was hitting.

And then it was dark….

 You can barely see Kai through the blowing dust….

At this point, we went inside and I actually had grit in my teeth….I won’t mention what my hair looked like 😉

The haboob was 3,000 ft. high and more then 30 miles wide.  It brought winds of 69 mph, some of which broke off some branches of my Mexican Bird-of-Paradise tree.

Just over at Double S Farms, my sister got photos of the storm approaching their house as well.

I am a total weather geek and I was thrilled to have witnessed a dust storm of this size.

Now, I just have to sweep the dust off my patio and wash the dust off of my plants with the hose 🙂