Word for the day : Haboob!

    Some photos of the mother-of-all-dust-storms that blew across Phoenix around sundown yesterday.   No, I didn't take any of these.  I have better things to do than go outside and have my expensive camera get sandblasted while I snap some pics.   For instance, like try to take the dogs for a walk in it.  Yeah, that didn't turn out real good.  Especially with me wearing contacts.

    I've seen reports that it was 50 miles across and a mile high.  It was almost like those Mt. St. Helens "ash" pictures - every outdoor surface throughout Phoenix was coated with dust this morning.  The streets were brown, the lawns were brown, the cars (those that weren't in garages) were brown.  I passed a quarter-mile-long line of traffic on the way home from work around 11:30 AM.  "Strange", thought I, "it doesn't normally pile up at that spot."  Silly me.  They were waiting to get into the local carwash, and the line had spilled out onto the street.

    The Word For The Day is HABOOB, which is Arabic for these types of dust-storms.  Wikipedia has some nice pics of them from other desert parts of the world.  Surprsingly, they're not very dangerous, unless you're trying to drive, fly, or walk around in them.  However, they are a royal nuisance.  Particularly, since we didn't get any precipitation out of it.

    The air today is still filthy with the dust.  What we really need is some rain to wash it all out of the atmosphere.  But it doesn't look good for tonight.  So the only thing to do is sit inside, pour yourself a glass of wine (red wine, s'il vous plaìt), and drink it in order to wash all those pesky dust motes out of your digestive system.  Hey, it's for your health!