Dust Storm — Central Deserts, Arizona

2013-06-30 · Central Deserts, Arizona

Event narrative

Excessive daytime heating combined with some mid level moisture to produce isolated high based thunderstorms across the central deserts during the evening hours on June 30th. At about 9 pm, a strong thunderstorm developed near Toltec and this storm produced strong gusty winds in excess of 45 mph. The gusty winds generated areas of dense blowing dust, and dust storm conditions across much of the central deserts, affecting communities such as Casa Grande, Arizola, Maricopa and the San Tan Valley. Several trained weather spotters reported dense blowing dust with visibility down to one quarter mile or below. At 930 pm, a spotter 4 miles north of Casa Grande reported visibility down to 100 yards in a dust storm. At 945 pm a spotter in the San Tan Valley reported 35 mph winds along with one quarter mile visibility. Fortunately, no serious accidents were reported due to the dense blowing dust.

Wider weather episode

Excessive heat combined with modest amounts of moisture to generate isolated high based thunderstorms across the south central Arizona deserts during the evening hours on June 30th. The storms produced strong gusty outflow winds in excess of 40 mph which moved over dry ground and stirred up significant quantities of dust. This led to dust storm conditions across portions of northwest Pinal county and eastern portions of the greater Phoenix metropolitan area. Dust storm warnings were issued for the central deserts including the Phoenix metropolitan area...and numerous storm spotters reported visibilities at or below one quarter of a mile in dense blowing dust.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 461335. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.