Haboob? What is a haboob?
It must have seemed like the end of the world had arrived yesterday, right on schedule, when a “massive wall of sand was kicked up by a storm, rolling across the desert from the Casa Grande area, moving it north toward Phoenix at about 25 to 30 miles an hour.”
Click here to watch this amazing video of yesterday’s dust storm in Arizona called a “haboob” from from the Arabic word for strong wind that describes this kind of storm in the Sahara Desert and the Arabian peninsula.
Walls of dirt and debris, usually miles wide and thousands of feet high, are pushed across dry desert terrain by high winds, causing dust to engulf highways. Although usually brief, dust storms must be taken seriously because of blinding conditions on highways. Each year, nearly five people lose their lives, and many others are injured as result of such storms, cautions the Arizona Department of Transportation.Known as “haboob,” dust storms are most common between May and September in southern Arizona, although they have been known to occur at other times of the year.
No doubt, religious and political leaders on Sunday Talk Shows will explain to the faithful that this haboob was the work of an angry God bent on punishing a sinful nation, and yet another sign of the end times.
Wednesday, June 7th, 2006 |
Uncategorized |
No Comments so far
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Leave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed:<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>
