I'm Waiting for the Locusts....

A dust storm rolling in on Phoenix (see Chase Field at right).
Just to give you a sense of what we're dealing with here.

I just experienced my first Southwestern dust storm.

I was driving back to the math department this evening after dinner, and noticed as I was pulling out of my parking spot that the sky was a really strange dark orange color. It's officially been monsoon season for a few weeks now, and the sky often looks pretty crazy before a monsoon, so I thought we were only about to get hit with a ton of rain.

But as I rounded a corner and pointed my car south down the street, I saw a wall of thick yellow fog a few blocks ahead moving toward me head-on. God, I thought, how bizarre to have such thick fog in the middle of the dry desert. I have only even seen fog this heavy roll in on the harbors of Cape Cod a few times.

Curious, I drove out of my way a few blocks south to investigate. The way it blotted out the ever-present mountains was absolutely ominous. Even apocalyptic, I thought, as the wind now picked up to scary speeds. The palm trees started bending like you see in footage of hurricanes in Florida. Metal construction signs on the side of the road rippled like pieces of paper. I had to drive around an industrial strength, rock-sided trash can that got toppled over into the street, and I heard the sound of glass smashing around me. I felt like I was driving through a scene from War of the Worlds.

I finally realized it was dust, and not fog, when a big gust of it picked up off the road in front of my car, temporarily blinding me as my headlights reflected off of it. Lightning slashed through the pea-soup sky as I parked and hurried into the math department for safety.

I've been waiting excitedly for the dramatic storms of monsoon season ever since I moved to Tucson. I have not been dissapointed. Arizona delivers a caliber of storm I never could have imagined!