WATCH: Dangerous dust storm rolls through Phoenix, AZ
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00:00As you can just see, just some of the images on the road, they're warning people to stay off the roads right now due to this wall of dust moving through that area.
00:10This is just so kind of fascinating to see, profound to see is this major dust storm hitting the Phoenix area.
00:16Let's take you out to our Fox 10 team as they are covering this in full.
00:23We are right in the middle of this dust storm.
00:27So take a look there, the wind blowing the trees.
00:31We've got people who are doing what they should do, pulling over.
00:34We're going really slow here in our car.
00:36You can see that there is not much visibility.
00:40You can't see.
00:41It's even hard to tell how far in the distance you can see.
00:44At times you can see some of the trees coming up, but for the most part, really hard to tell what's in front of us and what's coming, and there's no end in sight.
00:52So what we're doing, what this car is doing next to us, going really slow if you're already out on the roadways is what you need to do, or pulling over, especially if you are in an area that you don't have, you're not about to just pull into your driveway or take a really short trip.
01:10You need to be pulling over, so hopefully that's what this car in front of us is doing.
01:14We've seen some other cars doing it, things just blowing in front of the car.
01:19We've seen a lot of debris heading toward our windshield.
01:21Take a look at this, though.
01:22This is a perfect example, this car right here, of what you should be doing right now.
01:27So they are pulling over.
01:28You just need to stay out of this area.
01:31Yeah, but again, we're heading toward the 10 on Arizona Avenue right now, getting hit really hard with it, so this is where the heart of this is.
01:39Yeah, you might want to consider pulling over as well, because visibility is really down.
01:44Yeah, we're going to take a little break from driving so that we can be safe, but we wanted to show you guys a little bit of what it looked like, and we'll be back and check in a little bit later.
01:54Okay.
01:55Sounds good, Nicole. Thank you.
01:56Let's take a look up top at what Nicole is in.
01:59Sky Fox.
02:02Well, meteorologist Erica Horvathine, she's been on this, tracking it for us all evening long, so we'll take a look here at the radar, Erica.
02:09Yeah, so we've been watching the storms come in from the south, and we have a ton of rain, and from those strong and even earlier severe storms, we've seen this outflow boundary pushing north ahead of the rain.
02:22And that's what's led to this massive haboob that's pushing toward the valley.
02:26So there is currently a dust storm warning that includes the valley, and this will be from Sacatone up through pretty much the entire east valley to around Fountain Hills.
02:38It does include downtown Phoenix and even central Phoenix, and it goes west out to around Avondale.
02:45This polygon is where we're expecting to see that blowing dust, but it will likely start to disperse a bit as it moves northward into the valley, especially as it starts getting caught up on some of our mountains like South Mountain or the Estrella Mountains, things like that.
03:00But this is until 545, so that is another 40 minutes from now, and by that time, we are expecting to see the dust already have been making it through your area if you are within that polygon.
03:13So here I have the correlation coefficient. Sounds a little crazy, but what it means is that you can see in those red colors where there's low correlation, that means we're seeing a bunch of rain in those areas, and you can also make out other boundaries and things where there may be things like dust.
03:30So we are currently seeing that line of dust where I just put that red line there, and that extends from out around the pretty much out toward the Boynton Arboretum all the way up.
03:45Now you're seeing that through the Cave Creek Queen Creek area and pushing up toward Apache Junction.
03:52Follow that line. We're starting to see that dust coming a little bit closer to Chandler at this time,
03:58and then it does make its way up toward around Sun Lakes.
04:02So this line is going to keep pushing northward. Visibility is going to keep lowering along the 10 as we go through the next hour.
04:10And here's a look at the timing of arrival of that initial line of dust.
04:15And these are estimates because I'm not sure the exact speed it's moving, but based off of my estimate, that would bring this into Chandler by around 512.
04:24And that is just about another eight minutes or so.
04:28Gilbert by around 516.
04:30Mesa by 526.
04:32Phoenix by around 542.
04:35And Fountain Hills by around 546.
04:37And those times are actually very much in line with that dust storm warning that we have an effect for those areas.
04:45So that's around the time that you'll start to see the dust.
04:48Now the rain is following pretty closely behind that dust.
04:52And that should hopefully improve the visibility fairly quickly.
04:56We will see very strong wind gusts along that leading edge with the dust.
05:01In fact, some of those winds have been pretty intense.
05:04Let me show you those wind gusts that they're seeing where we are having those storms south of town.
05:11So if you take a look out toward Randolph and Florence, there are winds of 30 to 45 miles per hour.
05:17And we don't have a ton of sensors out there.
05:20So that's kind of a general idea of what kind of wind we're going to be seeing coming in behind this dust storm.
05:27And with all of the showers and thunderstorms that are going to follow it.
05:31So pretty gusty. The winds have just started to pick up a bit more in the valley from Sky Harbor to Chandler,
05:37out to Goodyear and Buckeye at about 20 to 25 miles per hour.
05:42And they will pick up. And we can see some damaging wind gusts with this.
05:47So the threats mainly going to be low visibility down to around a quarter mile, maybe more like a mile,
05:53because I believe this dust will disperse a little bit as it makes its way into the valley.
05:58But still, difficult driving conditions will be possible along the 10, the 60, and the 202, the 101, etc.
06:06As we go through the next hour or so, we'll also be seeing those strong gusts, which could lead to wind damage,
06:12could cause some trees to fall, some tree branches to fall as that comes in.
06:17And then the heavy rain. And, you know, there are some flood advisories south of the valley at this time
06:23from all this rain that's been pushing northward.
06:25But it does look like it's weakening just a little bit as it makes its way north.
06:30You could see a little bit less red and yellow within this mass of rain.
06:34And more just lighter greens, which would indicate that lighter precipitation.
06:39Storm's about to move in toward Cave Creek at this time.
06:42Sacatone, starting to see some showers and thunderstorms.
06:46Sun Lakes. You guys can expect to see rain here pretty soon.
06:49Even some showers look to be building closer and closer to Chandler at this time.
06:53And if you look further north, we do have a couple of pop-ups over the Estrella Mountains.
06:58Maybe even a light sprinkle already building in around Phoenix and Glendale.
07:03So as these outflow boundaries are moving north, they will end up popping up more showers and thunderstorms
07:09than what we are currently seeing here on the radar map.
07:13Another look at that correlation coefficient that I was showing you just a bit ago.
07:18And here's the line that I am watching.
07:21So it looks like that leading edge of the dust now pushing a little bit more toward the Superstition Mountains,
07:26coming in even more toward Apache Junction.
07:29It does kind of spread out here toward Chandler and Tempe.
07:35So again, it may not be quite as intense as it was a little bit earlier on.
07:41But you can see those camera shots and it does look like some low visibility down there.
07:47So...
07:48No doubt.
07:49Yes.
07:50Yep.
07:51Yeah.
07:52All right.
07:53We'll keep on the radar and keep checking in with you, Erica.
07:55But I think we have a live shot we wanted to take from Apache Junction.
07:58Our producer Jeff is...
08:00Oh, we're going to take Sky Fox one more time.
08:03Because this wall of dust is so incredible to see from this vantage point, if we can.
08:08Just incredible as it moves in from the south.
08:11Yeah.
08:12And we were showing you as it was picking up from Eloy and pushing toward the valley.
08:17And now we're really seeing that move in.
08:19Yeah.
08:20That's got to be at least 5,000 feet up there.
08:22Yeah.
08:23That is a big wall of dust.
08:25That does...
08:26Some of that does kind of remind you of that 2011 event on July 5th.
08:30The big haboob.
08:31It kind of gives you that feeling.
08:33I don't think we're there yet.
08:35But it is...
08:37It's impressive.
08:38I just got a text from Crystal Ortiz.
08:40She says it's moving into Gilbert now.
08:41So they're starting to see that.
08:42As Erica was saying, the timestamps on the radar there a little while ago.
08:47So that's tracking with what she was saying.
08:49Yes.
08:50But also, let's check in.
08:51What we're going to do now at the...
08:53Oh, Nicole.
08:55Nicole is heading south toward...
08:56She was just in the midst of all this dust on the roadway.
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