Dust Storm — West Pinal County, Arizona

2018-08-10 · West Pinal County, Arizona

Event narrative

Thunderstorms continued to develop to the south of Phoenix during the very early morning hours on August 10th; some of the stronger storms generated gusty outflow winds over 40 mph that stirred up areas of dense blowing dust and created dust storm conditions. Some of the dust storms affected the western portion of Pinal County. According to a trained weather spotter located 8 miles southwest of Ak-Chin Village, at 0035MST visibility lowered to just 20 feet in a dust storm. The dense blowing dust was reported west of Highway 347 and just east of the Maricopa County line. A Dust Storm Warning was issued for the area at 0030MST and it remained in effect through 0130MST.

Wider weather episode

Thunderstorms that developed south of the greater Phoenix area shortly before midnight on August 9th stirred up quite a bit of dust which led to dust storm conditions over portions of northwest and western Pinal Counties, as well as far southwest Maricopa County. The dust storms then continued into the very early morning hours, affecting the area from around the town of Maricopa southeast towards Casa Grande. Dust storms also affected the interstate 8 corridor near the Sonoran Desert National Monument to the east of Gila Bend. At 0010MST the official ASOS weather station in Casa Grande measured visibility to one quarter mile in blowing dust. One of the lowest visibility readings came from a trained spotter 8 miles southwest of the Ak-Chin Village; at 0035MST he indicated visibility down to 20 feet in a dust storm. Multiple Dust Storm Warnings were issued for the affected areas.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 769874. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.