Photo: Before and after the Haboob

Yesterday we had a haboob move through the Phoenix area in late afternoon for about 10 minutes.  This is a photo that shows the dust storm that moved across the valley, and the clear sky above it.  For contrast, below is a photo of the same scene on a normal day.

(Please excuse the quality of the photos.  They are iPhone photos from my office window, and there is some reflection in the glass.)

We used to just call these dust storms, but a couple of years ago we had a couple of big dust storms, and now they are called haboobs.  It is one of the many words that we have now imported into English from Arabic, which is a good thing to increase our cultural diversity.