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A person at Burning Man Saturday during an intense dust storm that wrecked encampments that were being built. Photo via Facebook from Chris Pietsch. |
Which makes sense, when you put about 70,000 thousand people out in the middle of the northwestern Nevada desert during monsoon season.
The event hadn't even gotten under way yet, but the weather has messed things up Saturday as crews were setting things up.
The electronic dance and culture site EDM Identity, which is covering Burning Man, reports:
"According to sources on site, heavy gusts bent metal support poles on structures of theme camps like Pink Hear, BRC Snow Club, Disco Lips and the Black Rock City Municipal Airport. The Burning Man Project did not immediately respond to an email asking if anyone had been injured as a result of the windstorm, or if any camps will be forced to rethink what they offer to this year's attendees.
Many have reported that yurts have been completely destroyed by the windstorm. In some photos, large slabs of reflective foam used to build them can be seen in piles at the trash fence lining the perimeter of the event site."
The dust storms at Burning Man on Saturday were caused by outflow from thunderstorms that had developed over the Sierra Nevada mountains. The storms dumped pretty much no rain on the site itself, so the problem was the blinding dust and winds that demonstrably were able to damage flimsy structures.
The weather problems might not be over for Burning Man. Heat and uncharacteristic humidity for the desert region could create more thunderstorms that threaten to produce flash flooding. Even a tenth of an inch of rain could turn the dry lakebed where Burning Man is held into a mud pit.
A risk of flash floods in the region in and around the Burning Man continues at least through Wednesday.
That's what happened in 2023, when an inch of rain fell during the festival in an area that only gets five to six inches of rain per year. The fine, dusty silt on the lake bed turned to deep mud, so nobody could drive out when the festival ended.
The crowd had to wait a couple days until things dried out, and had to conserve food and water until exit paths were established.
Also in 2023, climate protesters blocked the road leading to the event before it started, causing enormous traffic jams. While the demonstrators made everybody sit in idling vehicles and burn more fossil fuels, they did have a point: All this traveling to the desert isn't great for the environment or Earth's climate.
Though the event isn't exactly the main cause of the climate crisis. But as if to underscore the risk of a warming world. The 2022 edition of Burning Man really burned participates with record heat.
Video:
The dust storm at Burning Man the day before it officially started. I dunno, this does NOT look like fun. Click on this link to view, or if you see image below, click on that.
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