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A powerful summer storm wrought havoc with a dramatic wall of dust towering over Phoenix on Monday evening. This plunged the city into near-darkness, delayed flights at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX), and left thousands of homes without power.
The dust storm, known as a “haboob” (who came up with that name?), swept into the area from the southeast just before sunset. The dust measured thousands of feet into the air and reduced visibility to near zero. This forced drivers to pull over and coated much of the city in a thick layer of grime. The airport seemed to fare the worst of it with its operations being halted.
A time-lapse video captured the moment a massive wall of dust swallowed Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX) and briefly grounded operations while damaging part of the roof at Terminal 4, which is home to American Airlines, Southwest Airlines, British Airways, Aeromexico, Air France, Contour Airlines, Volaris, and WestJet. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a ground stop at 5:30 PM and halted all departures and arrivals as winds, lightning, and heavy rain followed the massive cloud. Operations resumed just after 6:00 PM, but the storm left behind a backlog with 104 flights delayed, three canceled, and one inbound flight diverted.
The airport only experienced minor roof damage and no aircraft were reported damaged. Ground crews immediately launched a cleanup effort to restore operations and to get all of the dust off of everything that it coated.
Beyond the airport, the storm cut power to thousands of homes, ripped through trees, and left residents to deal with both dust and flooding. The mixture of dust, wind, and torrential rainfall that followed the haboob’s arrival has left lots to be cleaned over the next few days. The National Weather Service reported lightning and wind gusts exceeding 50 mph, which further complicated recovery efforts.
Phoenix is in the middle of its annual monsoon season. It typically brings a volatile mix of thunderstorms, high winds, and dust storms that locals call haboobs. Meteorologists note that these events are most common in flat, arid regions where strong downdrafts from thunderstorms kick up desert dust.
Anthony’s Take: Monday’s storm is crazy to watch, but thankfully it caused relatively little damage and airport operations have returned to normal.
(Featured Image Credit: Michael Martinez via X.)
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Advertiser & Editorial Disclosure: The Bulkhead Seat earns an affiliate commission for anyone approved through the links above This compensation may impact how and where links appear on this site. We work to provide the best publicly available offers to our readers. We frequently update them, but this site does not include all available offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities.
