The Garden's First Haboob

As you may know by now, Phoenix experienced one of the largest haboobs in its history last night.  What's a haboob?  Hopefully any 2nd grader can tell you that (part of our state standards)!  It's a fast-moving dust storm that looks like an enormous reddish-brown wall.  When it comes over you, the air turns a brownish-red color and is full of dust.  It's difficult to breathe and see inside a haboob.

So I had decided to work in the garden last night, not knowing about the haboob.  When I was driving down the road to the garden, all I could see were very large, intense-looking thunderclouds moving closely to El Mirage.  They were so spectacular that I just focused on the northwest, keeping an eye out for random lightning strikes.

I spent about 30 minutes in the garden, digging up a new furrow for more pumpkins.  It was so nice and cool, the temperature dropping about 20 degrees.  The wind kept beating me hard, though, and I was getting sprayed with dirt and dust.  After I saw two lightning strikes getting closer, I decided to head into the car.  That's when I noticed this raincloud:

I was fascinated with it and all the dancing lightning bolts in the desert and the White Tank Mountains, so I drove to a nearby street, closer to the cloud, to take pictures.  (I was inside the car, but had all the windows down.)  I was facing the west, not know that a haboob was coming from the east.  ha ha!!  The sunset was spectacular, and there were several professional photographers on the same street, capturing the view as well.

I was wondering why the sunset was so red!!!  I had NO idea that this was approaching me from behind...



(Photograph from ABC15.com)



The garden survived the haboob just fine!!  It's just....... more dirty.  ;)