How can any red-blooded American male resist this! (I think that was the idea behind McCain's madness?)
Seen any whopper haboobs lately? Well I have. And I'm not talking about female V.P. candidates! We had a whopper haboob Thursday evening. Here's the official explanation of what causes the haboob:
During thunderstorm formation, winds move in a direction opposite to the storm's travel, and they will move from all directions into the thunderstorm. When the storm collapses and begins to release precipitation, wind directions reverse, gusting outward from the storm and generally gusting the strongest in the direction of the storm's travel. When this downdraft, or "downburst", reaches the ground, dry, loose sand from the desert settings is essentially blown up, creating a wall of sediment preceding the storm cloud. This wall of sand can be up to 100 km (62 miles) wide and several kilometers in elevation. At their strongest, haboob winds can travel at 35-50 km/h (20-30 mph), and they may approach with little to no warning.
Arizona and other Southwest desert areas get them, along with deserts all over the world. Anyway, this one was 60 miles in length, at least 5,000 ft. high, and closed down Sky Harbor Airport. I ran out and took a few pictures before it hit. It lasted for about 45 minutes, and I spent Friday cleaning up the mess it left. Obviously, this is what a small portion of it looked like as it approached.
Here's a picture from the AZ Republic taken in a different area.
And last, but certainly not LEAST on the tasteless scale, this was the welcome mat on the street in front of my old high school when I returned for an alumni reunion several years ago. Look if you dare, but this is not for the squeamish!
Well, I guess they didn't need EVERY dead squirrel in town for the banquet meal! he he he he
4 comments:
I love that song; the video is great! I remember seeing it & trying to figure out who everyone was!
I don't know all of them, but the guy on the sofa is Vince Gill. I think they all take their turn at cross-dressing! Ha!
Funny....I wondered about you'll when I saw storm on news.Ive had heck getting my Blogger acct. straight,think I have it fixed now.Like your blog..have read them all.
Thanks Frank! Hope you escaped any major damage at your house from Ike! Was wondering today if you had power?
The high winds had petered out by the time the haboob got to our neighborhood. We just got a solid coating of dirt on everything! That was actually the second haboob of the week. I'm waiting until monsoon season is over to clean the windows inside and out. Otherwise, it'd be endless!
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