Last night there was a pretty serious storm north of Abilene and I was watching it on the news. Someone had sent in pictures and it showed huge clouds and a huge cloud of dust and they said it looked like a haboob. I looked at Vince and said “What the heck is a haboob?” He didn’t know either so I looked it up.
According to Wikipedia – a violent and oppressive wind blowing in summer, especially in Sudan, bringing sand from the desert.
I figured if neither of us had ever heard of it, chances were at least a few readers had never heard of it either. Do you feel smarter? 🙂
Valerie J. Zagami says
My son lives in Arizona and I saw they were having a haboob while I was visiting. I too had to look it up! They are scary sometimes. We are becoming very cosmopolitan as we age with the internet!
Ranch Wife says
Yes, we have them here often, but I only knew what they were called because of National Geographic. 🙂
Jackie says
We used to get them frequently in the Middle East. We called them shumals might be spelt incorrectly.
Marilyn Smith says
We get them occasionally here in the Coachella Valley, CA. The Phoenix area is much more prone in getting them.
Sue Edberg says
Phoenix has used the word Haboob for many years. Every summer we have at least a couple baboons and they are huge and envelope the entire area in lots of dust. You can see them moving in, usually from the south, and you don’t want to be outside when they reach you. You will get sandblasted!
Sue Edberg says
Oops! I just noticed that spellcheck changed my word haboobs to baboons. Did I ever tell you I hate spellcheck. (It just tried to change it to woodchuck!) I guess I better learn to proofread better.
Rebecca in SoCal says
It gave me a laugh! (I figured spellcheck was playing games. It sure wants animals in your texts!)
Sherrill Pecere says
I think I was in something similar to a haboob last night. The rain was TORRENTIAL and it was super windy, making driving on I-35 next to impossible and hard to see car in front. I get SO AGGRAVATED at people who pull over under the overpasses. They make it way more dangerous! Did you see how horrible the hail was in the McKinney area a couple days ago? SCARY!
Nancy says
There have been haboobs in Phoenix in the past several years. Don’t remember them before that time. The dust gets so thick you can’t see. Luckily we haven’t had them in Tucson yet.
Nelle Coursey says
Yes I do feel better because I did not know what that was either! We have always just called them Texas dust storms! LOL
Susan says
Living in Phoenix for a long time, I knew it, but I haven’t *thought* about it in 13 years! =)
Jeri Niksich says
I guess that’s what the red dust storms were called 30+ yrs ago when I would wash and hang out 5 dozen cloth diapers only to run out to see that I was too late, the diapers were all sand blasted a red color! And it was back to washing and hanging them again ugh! I don’t like the dust storms in Abilene TX. So now I don’t have dust storms or any other types of storms here in South Texas even though we sure do need the rain! Just can’t win for losing I guess lol.
Jeri
Lee says
I was rather bewildered the first time I heard a newscaster out here refer to the Arizona ones as haboobs. To me, it’s just a plain old massive dust storm. Wasn’t sure why we needed to rename them using a term from some other country. Seems anything ‘foreign’ is much more exciting or impressive than plain good old home-grown terminology. I just shake my head and move on.