3 Dust-Storms in past 20 days (Phoenix, Chandler: living in, land, deal)

[coolmib]

A friend of mine is visiting Chandler from China. He told me he encountered 3 dust storms already in past 20 days of his stay. The one happened this afternoon was the worst. He joked if this sand storm was blown all the way from Beijing.

Is this kind of dust storm really normal for Phoenix area?

[LBTRS]

It is normal during the monsoon season. However, this year we have had more larger ones than in recent years.

[Finger Laker]

i also wouldn't say anything over the past week or two would constitute a dust storm ...... we just get dusty during storms .... it's not like the couple of big storms earlier where the wall of dust swept in on the city

[PoppySead]

Yes, I second what Finger Laker has said, these last few were pretty weak compared to the actual monsoon dust storms. It's just dry so any wind creates some dust and without rain after then it's just blowing everywhere, although I guess one of them caused a pile up on the freeway. We didn't get much rain during this monsoon so I imagine we will be pretty dusty for awhile.

[coolmib]

I noticed that all these yellow "clouds" came from the south/south east of the valley, probably originated from the Casa Grande area. Can't our gov do something, say plant something in that naked area to hold the earth from being blown away? People live in Chandler-Gilbert-Queen Creek seem to suffer the most.

[Finger Laker]

No - they can't.

We do have really strong dust control restictions out here .... but we live in a relatively arid desert, have a lot of open land - not to mention the farming communities around.

Typically wind and wet go hand in hand to some degree ... so if there is rain then nature does a good job at weighing down the dust/dirt ....... when the rain doesn't fall and you just get the winds then the problems are going to get worse - especially after a long dry period (like the beginning of monsoon season).

It's not like it's some 200 acre parcel where all the dust is kicked up from that could be developed ....... it's comes with a large chunk of land in the part of the state where we choose to live

It comes with living in the area and you need to know how to deal with it and be careful