Massive Haboob Slams Phoenix, And Other Arizona Communities. Quite The Spectacle

Image of yesterday's massive haboob taking over
the Phoenix metro area. 

 Gosh, this blog thingy is turning into all Phoenix, all the time. 

I went on and on about the extreme summer heat there the other day, but yesterday, things got really wild out there in Arizona. 

A haboob, or giant dust storm hit the area as monsoon thunderstorms raged over large parts of Arizona and adjacent southeast California. 

Outflow from the storms stirred up the massive, apocalyptic looking wall of dust that dropped visibility to zero when it hit.

The haboob hit during the evening commute and some motorists said they couldn't see past their car hoods. The National Weather Service warned everyone to "pull aside to stay alive."

Apparently, everyone did. So far, I haven't seen any reports of deaths or serious injuries. 

Winds were intense in this swirling dust storm. A gust to 94 mph was reported at Sun Tan Valley, in the southeastern outskirts of the Phoenix metro area. The wind at Sky Harbor International Airport gusted to 70 mph amid the clouds of dust. Visibility there was at zero from 5:35 to 5:51 p.m. 

The temperature at the airport fell from 100 to 79 degrees in just 17 minutes.

To the shock of nobody, the haboob delayed plenty of flights at the airport.  A ground stop there lasted a good hour. A connector bridge at the airport was shredded by the storm, and part of a roof at a terminal was damaged. 

Power lines and even utility poles snapped. Trees fell on houses, cars and carports. Photos and video from the Phoenix showed fallen trees, traffic signals and wires. The bottoms of countless swimming pools were covered in dirt.  

The haboob yesterday about to swallow the Phoeni
Sky Harbor airport. 

In Arizona Monday,  the haboob was followed in many areas by torrential rains from the parent thunderstorm. 

As the rain turned the dust to mud then washed it away, flash flood alerts blared in the Phoenix area, along with many other areas in southern Arizona and far southern California away from the coast. 

The haboob traveled quite a distance, too. It developed a little north to Tucson, then slammed through Casa Grande around 4:25 p.m. local time before slamming into Phoenix an hour later. Which means it traveled a good 60 miles at least. 

Haboobs are pretty common in arid areas, including in the U.S. Desert Southwest.  A similar serious haboob swept through the Burning Man festival in northwest Nevada last weekend, ripping up encampments and other temporary structures. 

Some observers say the Phoenix haboob on Monday was the most intense since July, 2011. 

Every weather emergency has its precautions, and haboobs have theirs.  Motorists who see a wall of dust coming should pull into a parking lot. Or, if none is available, pull as far off the side of the road as possible. 

People are told to shut off their car lights.  The visibility in haboobs is so bad that people have been known to smash into parked cars with lights on, thinking they were on the highway. Kind of like a blizzard here in Vermont. Except obviously with sand, not snow. 

More haboobs, big thunderstorms and flash floods are possible in the Desert Southwest for the rest of today and likely tomorrow. 

On a vaguely humorous note, spell check kept trying to make me say Phoenix was hit with either a "kabob" or a "baboon" either of which would have been more fun and probably less dangerous. 

Videos:

Storm chaser Aaron Rigsby got some amazing shots of the Arizona haboob. Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that:

 
Another video from the Associated Press, shows what it was like to be in a car during the haboob, then a timelapse of the haboob, followed by torrential rain, sweeping into downtown Phoenix. Again, click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that:

Burning Man Falls Victim To Extreme Weather, Again

A person at Burning Man Saturday during an intense
dust storm that wrecked encampments that were being
built. Photo via Facebook from Chris Pietsch.

 Burning Man, that big quirky festival that takes place every year on an (almost always dry desert   lake bed in Nevada, is once again having trouble with the weather. 

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.

Weather Mayhem In Midwest, South, East: More Than Two Dozen Dead In Tornadoes, Other Extreme Weather

Aerial view shows a row of damaged
homes in St. Louis after a tornado
passed through the city on Friday

Friday was a classic, tragic weather mayhem day in the nation 

Millions of people had to keep on their toes dodging tornadoes, severe thunderstorms, high winds, temperature extremes. Even dust storms in unlikely places.  

The worst of it was the tornadoes. So far 28 have been confirmed on Friday, with the count expected to go higher as damage is assessed. That's on top of the tornado tally for Thursday, which so far stands at 24. 

Worse, the death toll from the tornadoes had risen to 29 as of this morning. 

At least 23 people died in and near London, in southeastern Kentucky after a powerful tornado swept through that community. 

Video from London, Kentucky shows numerous houses completely leveled. Some were swept clean away, leaving behind a floor and nothing else, 

 Five of the storm-related deaths so far were in St. Louis, where at least one tornado swept through the city. One of those people died when a church collapsed.

As many as 5,000 homes in St. Louis were affected by the storm. Dozens of buildings in St. Louis lost roofs or walls.  Streets were littered and blocked with debris,f allen power lines and poles and wrecked cars.    

A brew pub in St. Louis collapsed with 20 people inside, but they all escaped with minor or no injuries. 

The Mid-Atlantic States didn't escape nature's wrath either. Several severe storms hit. At least one tornado touched down in New Jersey. Baltimore, Maryland  and southern Delaware were under tornado warnings at various points yesterday. 

The roof of the Merritt Athletic Club in Baltimore blew off, wrecking the building and damaging some surrounding structures. A possible tornado damaged several homes and buildings in Dundalk, Maryland, southeast of Baltimore. 

DUST STORM

Strong winds behind the storm's cold front stirred up winds gusting to 60 mph or more. These swept over newly plowed farm fields in Illinois. This created a wall of dust along a 100 mile line that eventually swept into Chicago.  

Approaching dust storm in Illinois Friday. Chicago was under
a first-ever dust storm warning on Friday.

So yes, Chicago had the first-ever experience of being under a dust storm warning Friday evening. 

 During the height of the dust storm, Chicago's Midway airport reported gusts to 59 mph and a quarter mile visibility in blowing dust. 

The poor visibility led to several traffic crashes in Illinois. Sections of Interstates 74 and 55 were shut down by the dust near Bloomington, in central Illinois.

Big dust storms have been usually common this spring in vast areas of the Plains States,

TEMPERATURE EXTREMES

The Northern Plains have certainly been on a wild temperature roller coaster. 

One example in Minot, North Dakota. On May 10-12 they had daily highs of  94, 99 and 95 degrees. On Friday, the high temperature there was just 41 degrees and there was a freeze warning in effect this morning. 

Overall, the northern tier of states will have cool conditions for the next several days at least, Summer is still not here yet! 

OUTLOOK

The bad weather isn't over yet. More tornadoes and severe storms are likely in and around Texas today. Other severe storms might be scattered over northern New York and New England, including here in Vermont.

A new tornado outbreak is possible in the central Plains Sunday and Monday and in the Southeast Tuesday, 

 

A Look Back At The Horrible U.S. Storm Last Weekend In Videos

Tornado damage from last weekend in Arkansas

That horrible storm that swept much of the nation last weekend was one of the most multi-faceted, and tragic storms in recent memory. 

The storm yielded a huge number of dramatic videos on social media. I'll share just a few of them here. 

The first video is from a live stream by Marcus Diaz showing how fast visibility dropped along Interstate 27 in Texas during Friday's dust storms. He and his companion were on an access road next to the Interstate has vehicles plowed into each other. 

You can't see much because the dust is so thick but you can hear the collisions. Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that. 

 

From Texas Storm Chasers, the intense winds flipped numerous tractor trailers near Amarillo, Texas.  Click on this link to view you see the image below, click on that. 

Immediate aftermath of a highly destructive nighttime tornado in Cave City, Arkansas. You can see how difficult search and rescue is at night with all the debris and no power. Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that:

A view from inside a house as it got hit by a tornado in Tylertown, Mississippi on Saturday. Again, click on the link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that. 

Storm chaser Aaron Rigsby has these aftermath drone shots after the tornadoes in Arkansas. Destruction looks absolutely extreme. One more time, click on this link to view or of if you see image below click on that. 

 

Mega-Storm That Killed 42 Finally Gone, New Storm Causing New Trouble. We'll See Effects Here In Vermont, Too

Video still from storm chaser Aaron Rigsby shows the
capriciousness of tornadoes. Home in foreground
was destroyed by an Arkansas tornado last weekend
while the house next door looks fine. 

 The last vestiges of that enormous, super-destructive and deadly storm departed the Northeast Monday, leaving some flooding in New England and Quebec, but otherwise finishing up its rampage. 

The U.S. death toll from tornadoes, wildfires and dust storms generated by the super storm has risen to 42.   

So far, a total of at least 132 tornadoes have been counted from the Midwest to the East Coast, and more assessments are being done. 

A total of 400 homes in Oklahoma alone were destroyed or damaged in wildfires over the past few days. 

Wildfires are still burning in the Plains, and now a new storm is about to cause new trouble.

NEWEST HAVOC

The latest storm won't be as strong or as widespread and likely not as destructive of the last one. But it's still causing problems already.

The central and southern Plains are taking the brunt of it again. Places that were under fire weather alerts for dry air and strong winds yesterday and today are also now under blizzard warnings for tonight and Wednesday. 

To give you an idea of the extremes going on in the Midwest, the forecast for Lincoln, Nebraska calls for dry air and a high of 80 degrees today. There could be wildfires in the region.

By Wednesday morning's commute time, Lincoln will be at or below freezing with blizzard conditions and wind gusts as high as 65 mph. Then, by Thursday, everything will be hunky dory again in Lincoln with sunshine and a  high near 50. 

That blizzard warning actually extents from western Kansas, through Nebraska, northwester western Iowa and into southern Minnesota. 

Further south, things are even more dangerous.

Another bout of hot, strong, dry winds are forecast in New Mexico, western Kansas and especially in Oklahoma and western Texas. This region can expect more wind damage, more blinding dust storms and more nearly impossible to control wildfires. 

Even after the storm departs tomorrow, strong winds and dry air should continue over western Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma through at least Saturday, continuing the wildfire siege there.  

 Thankfully, this new storm does not look like it will manage to produce another major tornado outbreak.  Some severe thunderstorms seem likely in parts of Illinois and Indiana tomorrow, but if there are any tornadoes at all, they should be few and far between and not as strong as those over the weekend. 

VERMONT EFFECTS

High water continues to recede this morning across Vermont, though a few roads in low lying areas are likely still closed due to continued flooding. 

Will that little nor'easter depicted on this
forecast map for Friday morning give
Vermont a late season forecast, or will
it miss?  Computer models disagree.

After a frosty morning, we still have another weird March heat wave in the forecast, but it won't be as extreme as we saw over the weekend.  Still, highs should get into the 60s Wednesday and Thursday. 

Then the weather potentially gets weird again. 

The cold front will slow down to allow a storm to form in the Mid-Atlantic states. And turn into a nor'easter. 

It'll cool off rapidly Thursday night behind the front as the nor'easter approaches, so rain should change to snow.  The question remains: Will we get a lot of heavy, wet snow with this, or just a little. 

It depends on its exact path, as to how much of anything we get. If the storm goes a little more inland, it'll be mostly rain with a little snow at the end. 

 Or it could put Vermont in the sweet spot for a burst of heavy snow late Thursday or Friday. Or, the storm could go far enough east so moderate rain with the cold front just ends as a little bit of light snow.

For what it's worth, earlier runs of the American computer model had the storm smacking us pretty good early Friday. This morning's run of the same computer model  has it missing entirely. Basically the computer models are still all over the place with this one, so stay tuned. 

Time will tell, but it could be an interesting storm.  

On the bright side, so far, no new flooding is expected Thursday night and Friday.  There won't be enough rain to send rivers into flood stage. And if it snows, that won't cause much in the way of flooding. 

Watch this space for updates. We probably won't know a lot of details with this until we get well into Wednesday and Thursday.  

"Dirty Rain" In Midwest, East Blamed On Texas Duststorm

A car in Truxton, Missouri this weekend after light rain
showers mixed with dust from Texas hoisted aloft by
strong winds caused mud showers across large
areas of the Midwest and East the past few days. 

When my late father was a teenager in the 1930s, he woke up one March morning at his home in West Rutland, Vermont to find it had snowed overnight. 

Hardly an unusual occurrence in the Green Mountain State this time of year. 

But the snow wasn't white. It was brown. 

Those were the Dust Bowl days, when an unprecedented drought and poor farming practices joined forces to create immense dust storms in the Great Plains. 

These dust storms were so big that the dust carried high aloft, merged with storms further east. Those storms deposited rain and snow, mixed with the dirt in the sky carried from places like Kansas and Nebraska.

I thought of dad's story this week when I saw news reports of "dirty rain" falling this past week in places like St. Louis, Cincinnati, Charleston, West Virginia, Columbus, Ohio, Raleigh, North Carolina  and numerous other cities in the Midwest and East.

Turned out it was a similar situation to the Dust Bowl era.

The huge windbag of a storm that struck the middle of the nation last week swept New Mexico and Texas with winds gusting to more than 60 mph. Parts of western Texas and New Mexico are in extreme drought, so things out there are even dustier than usual. 

Those winds stirred up huge clouds of dust that darkened the skies and cut visibility to a mile or two in cities like El Paso, Austin, San Antonio and Dallas.  

False color satellite photo from last Friday morning. A 
powerful storm had sent clouds of dust from New Mexico
and Texas aloft. Here, the dust was concentrated high
over Oklahoma. Winds moved that dust 
eastward into areas of showers in the Midwest and
East, where it mixed with raindrops to create 
weird mud showers 

The winds were so powerful the dust was carried aloft - much like in the 1930s. That dust blew through the air over Illinois, Missouri and other states. That grime ran into lingering rain showers over the Midwest and East.  

The result was light showers of mud. 

These mudowers, I'd guess you'd call this dirty rain showers, had people wondering what the heck was going on. Residents of central Virginia, awakening Saturday morning to find their cars speckled in dirt, wondered if some nefarious agent was spraying some dangerous substance. 

Residents of Raleigh, North Carolina also found cars speckled in dirt after overnight showers. 

St. Louis, Missouri had their mud showers Friday, leaving cars and windows covered in dirt. The storm was probably a huge bonus to window washing businesses and car washes. 

There was some snow up here in Vermont during this episode. But the dust aloft did not make it this far to the north and east.  The dust aloft moved eastward through the Ohio Valley and eventually off the Mid-Atlantic coast. So the snow that fell Friday and Saturday here in Vermont was your traditional white, not brown. 

Some more snow is likely in Vermont today and tonight, but since the air flow is from frozen southern Canada,  not dusty west Texas, the snow should stay white, unless something completely  unexpected happens. 

These dirty rain storms parts of the nation have seen in recent days might not be over. Another powerful storm - perhaps even stronger than last week's is forecast to develop in the Great Plains toward next weekend. 

That storm could pull more dust from the drought zones of Arizona, New Mexico and Texas and drop more mud showers, who knows?

 

Monday Storm Brought National Extremes: Va. Tornado, Northeast Floods, Michigan/W. Va Floods, Fatal Dust

Damage from a powerful tornado in Virginia Beach,
Virginia on Sunday. 

The wide ranging storm that hit the East Coast and Great Lakes yesterday caused all kinds of interesting weather, extremes and even destruction.  Some more weirdness is coming from this storm today, but it will be toned down somewhat from yesterday. 

Here in Vermont, we threaded the needle and mostly avoided the strongest winds and the heaviest rains, but the day evolved into an odd one with spells of warm sunshine mixed with very chilly downpours and blasts of pea-sized hail.

But that paled in comparison with other places, for sure. 

VIRGINIA TORNADO

The havoc Sunday with a strong, destructive tornado in Virginia Beach, Virginia. This twister was oddly strong for this neck of the woods. The National Weather Service in Wakefield, Virginia pegged it as an EF-3 with top winds of 145 mph. 

Unfortunately, it was at maximum intensity when it blew through the Chelsea neighborhood of Virginia Beach. Several large, well constructed homes lost roofs and second floors, and some were shifted off their foundations. Miraculously, no deaths were reported. 

Drone footage showed rows of houses with severe damage, while homes across the street appear almost totally intact. 

NYC FLOOD

The storm brought five or six inches of rain over the weekend to the New York City, area, which is more rain than usually falls over a whole month. 

As you'd expect, flooding was pretty widespread. Water blocked major roads, with video of cars struggling through deep water.  The water also swept into basement apartments. Unlike in Tropical Storm Ian back in 2021, no deaths were reported in these basement floods. The storm did cause the wall of a residential building in the Bronx to collapse, forcing evacuations. 

MAINE/NEW HAMPSHIRE WIND AND FLOOD

The Dixville, Maine Fire Company posted this photo of
serious flood damage on a town road Monday. 

The storm kept moving north into New England. As had been expected a fire hose of torrential rain and wind slammed into much of New Hampshire and southwestern Maine. 

Four to six inches of rain came down in eastern New Hampshire and southwestern Maine with this, so the flooding was pretty extensive here, too.

The flooding closed no fewer than three dozen main road, and probably a few hundred more real and smaller roads and streets in New Hampshire and Maine on Monday. Several buildings were flooded in Farmington, Maine, and other homes were damaged in scattered areas of Maine and eastern New Hampshire. 

Rushing water destroyed a parking lot for a retail complex in Skowhegan. Power went out to 68,000 customers as winds as high as 70 mph accompanied the downpours. 

MICHIGAN/WISCONSIN SNOWSTORM 

Cold air wrapping around the storm brought heavy snow to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and parts of northern Wisconsin.

The persistent north winds are also creating lake effect snows off to Lake Superior. The high terrain in the central Upper Peninsula could receive two to as much as three feet of snow by the time this is all over, probably this afternoon.

Marquette, Michigan reported a whopping 19.8 inches of snow Monday, easily its biggest May snowstorm on record. There was a report this morning of 25 inches of snow just outside our Marquette. Snow fell as far south as Green Bay, which reported 2.2 inches of new snow.

WEST VIRGINIA SNOWSTORM 

The core of the coldest air with this vast, virtually stalled low pressure system was actually to the south and west of Vermont, this morning, more toward Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. 

Dust blowing off farm fields cut visibility to near zero
along Interstate 55 in Illinois, causing a massive
pileup that killed six people and injured 37. 

That means it's cold enough for snow in the high elevations of West Virginia and there's LOTS of it. A rare winter storm warning is up for the mountains of West Virginia, with up to a foot of new snow expected in the highest elevations.

Already, a spot near Cherry Grove, West Virginia has reported 6.5 inches of new snow.  Photographs of snow drifts as much as waist deep.

Snow showers often happen in the high elevations of West Virginia during early May, but the magnitude of this storms is much larger than they're used to. 

FATAL ILLINOIS DUST 

On the southern and western periphery of this big storm, dry northwest winds have been blowing through much of the Plains and Midwest well south of the Great Lakes.

Monday, this turned tragic.  Fields are freshly plowed through vast areas of the Midwest, including Illinois, as farmers get ready to plant. Along Interstate 55, dry air allowed the surface of freshly plowed fields to dry out. Then, strong winds blew the dust in blinding clouds across Interstate 55. 

The tragic result was a series of pileups along a two-mile stretch of Interstate 55 that killed six people and injured 37.  At least 72 vehicles were involved in the crash. 

These farm field dust storms happen occasionally throughout the Midwest, but they don't often cause a disaster as big as this one.  

Extreme Local Weather Disasters Most Often Hit In The Summer

Aerial view of the aftermath of a massive flash flood in a
mountainous region of southwestern Virginia a couple
weeks ago. 

 During the autumn, winter and spring, weather disasters usually come in the form of large, strong storm systems that wreak havoc over a pretty large area.  

 Sure, large scale heat waves, wildfires and early season hurricanes can hit in the summer, causing major disruptions and threats to life. 

In the summertime, though, it's the pin prick disasters that will get you. Summertime extremes tend to be, well, more extreme, but hit a much smaller, local area.  Two such events recently caught my attention.

VIRGINIA

Last week, storms stalled over mountainous southwestern Virginia, which is always bad news for anywhere in the Appalachians, from Maine to Georgia. The torrents of rain can send walls of water down steep slopes onto sleepy hamlets in the valleys. 

This happened at night, and people suspected the worst. Were people asleep in their homes, unaware everything was going to wash away? After all, a similar summer flash flood in Tennessee last year killed 21 people. 

Initial reports indicated 40 or so people were missing. But that was mostly due to the fact that cell phone service sucks in that mountainous corner of Virginia. Plus, since roads were washed out, people couldn't just drive to Aunt Martha's house in Buchanan County to check on her. 

It turns out everyone survived, which honestly is a miracle. Aftermath videos and photos show houses washed hundreds of feet from where they once stood, utterly destroyed. 

Terrible to think about, though. You go to bed on a muggy evening and everything's fine. Before the night's over, lives are upended.  And you know it could happen anywhere, even here in little old Vermont. 

I love listening to summer downpours roar down on the roof of my St. Albans, Vermont home in the dark pre-dawn hours. It's always pleasant, but paranoid me thinks, what if this downpour doesn't stop?  I choose not to worry about it though. It's not worth worrying about something that won't happen. Probably. 

MONTANA

Last week, a surprising dust storm in Montana didn't have such a positive result. Six people were reported killed when the blinding storm roared across Interstate 90 near Hardin, Montana. 

I didn't know they can have dust storms in Montana, but after this disastrous one, I can see how it can happen. But Hardin is in a relatively open, semi-arid area east of Billings.  

Aftermath of July 15 dust storm crash near
Hardin, Montana. 

The thunderstorm that caused the disaster wasn't even really over Hardin.  It was basically what is known as an outflow boundary from a thunderstorm many miles away.

The parent storm was at least 30 mph away, but created a rush of wind gusting over 60 mph through the Hardin area, said Nick Vertz, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Billings, Montana. 

"'If they looked up in the sky while they're in Hardin, they probably didn't see much of what you'd think of a thunderstorm cloud, maybe not even much at all," Vertz said. 'It was just a surge of wind that kind of appeared out of nowhere.'"

It has been hot and dry before the storms in that part of Montana, so the surge of rainless wind was able to pick up a lot of dust. It was enough to cause what I would call a brownout - very much like a whiteout in the winter when blowing snow cuts visibility to zero. 

Twenty one vehicles piled up, including tractor trailers, and those crashes killed six people. 

It could have been even worse. Video of the scene shows that many other vehicles were able to stop safely behind the wreck without crashing into each other.  Traffic was backed up for miles. 

I'm sure there have been other local disasters in the United States this summer and there will be more. It's a part of the season. 

VIDEOS:

Inside Edition report on that flood in Buchanan County, Virginia. Click on this link if you don't see the video image, otherwise, watch below: 

Local news report on the Hardin, Montana crash, with brief glimpses of how bad things were during the actual dust storm. Click on this link or watch below:

This Is Winter? Alberta Dust, Montana Gust, Dakota Fires

Traffic cam shows a dust storm in Alberta yesterday. 

 When I picture the High Plains of the United States and Canada in the winter, I think of vast expanses of blowing snow, bitter temperatures, you know, the movie "Fargo." 

This year, it's dry, arid land, dust storms and fires. 

For the second time in as many weeks, parts of northern and central Plains Kansas,  including the "wetter" Missouri valley in the eastern South Dakota and Nebraska are under a red flag warning today due to the high risk of rangeland fires.

It hasn't snowed or rained much there this winter. The ground is uncharacteristically free of snow and there's been odd warm spells. Yankton, in southeastern South Dakota, is expecting a high of 56 degrees today, wind gusts to 45 mph and a relative humidity down around 20 percent.

Across the international border in Canada, dust storms caused highway crashes in southern Alberta, according to CBC.  Some highways were closed in the area as winds gusted to 70 mph.  Chinook winds off the Canadian Rockies often erase the wintertime snow cover in this part of Canada, but it's rare to hae serious dust storms there in February. 

Back into the United States, just a little south of the Alberta dust storm, Cut Bank, Montana reported a gust of 83 mph, its highest wind since 1961.

Extreme drought is ongoing in much of northern Montana and adjacent Alberta, which helps explain the odd conditions. 

Epic Storm Departs Plains, Widespread Damage Left Behind

Satellite view of epic storm in the Plains late yesterday
afternoon. That white area on the right is a string of severe
thunderstorms and tornados. Where it curves back to the '
left is blinding snow squalls. All of that brownish color
in the middle and bottom are massive dust storms. 

 Early risers in Chicago awoke to the smell of smoke before dawn today. 

Nope, they weren't facing a new Great Chicago fire. Residents there were sensing the sad aroma of Kansas burning.  This was just one indication of how extreme and weird this storm was. 

The storm did pretty much what it was expected to do, meaning it set records for temperatures, wind speeds both inside and outside thunderstorms, tornadoes and more.'  And was completely off the rails. 

The smoke people in Chicago, and other cities like Omaha and Des Moines smelled was from incredibly fast moving wildfires in Kansas and Oklahoma.  All those cities also reported dust blown from Colorado and Kansas hundreds of miles into their communities.

The fires threatened towns and hamlets in both states. Parts of Guymon, Oklahoma were evacuated, as winds gusting to 79 mph pushed the flames. One house was destroyed by fire.  In Russell and Ellsworth counties, Kansas, two fires merged to produce a fire front that was at one point 40 miles long.  

NOAA' s Storm Prediction Center has 21 preliminary reports of tornadoes as of this morning. One of them was near Rochester, Minnesota, making that the first recorded December tornado in that state.

Winds gusts reaching 85 mph or more extended from Colorado to southern Minnesota, helping illustrate the huge area covered by the intense winds.  The Washington Post said Wednesday brought the most number of reports of winds of 75 mph or higher in a single day since 2004. 

Numerous homes lost roofs in Nebraska, Kansas and Colorado. A building collapsed in Kansas.  The wind was strong enough to blow windows out of cars parked in Hampton, Nebraska. The control tower at Kansas City International Airport was evacuated for a time because winds were too strong for personnel to be safe there.

The police headquarters in Colorado Springs was among the buildings that lost roofs.

Dust storms reminiscent of the Dust Bowl days of the 1930s ripped through the Plains, too, closing Interstate highways, causing crashes and widespread air quality alerts.

The warmth ahead of the storm also broke some impressive records.  In Des Moines, it got to 74 degrees, breaking the record for the warmest December day on record by five degrees.  Madison, Wisconsin also had its hottest December day on record, reaching 68 degrees. Columbia Missouri, 76 degrees, Quincy, Illinois, 75 degrees and LaCrosse, Wisconsin, 69, degrees all also set new December records. 

That weird, extreme storm is now heading into Canada, creating 34 foot waves on Lake Superior as a parting shot. 

The weather is now settling down into something a little more normal.  But there's still some trouble on the horizon.  Western Kentucky, still trying to somehow recover from last week's horrific tornadoes, now faces a forecast of heavy rain and possible flooding tomorrow.

Here in Vermont, the outer edges of that immense Midwestern storm is still set to create some record high temperatures today.  Gusty winds today and tonight might cause a few power outages here and there. A new storm is also now expected to give us a mid-sized snowstorm Saturday and Saturday night. More on that tomorrow. 

Videos. If you're using a mobile device, click on the hyperlinks to view. 

Fox Weather has some video clips of storm scenes. I'm impressed by the amount of lightning last night in Iowa: 

The Washington Post also had some clips of the storms: 

Tumbleweeds pile up in the strong winds in this Colorado neighborhood: