Dust Storm in Arizona - Four Killed, 42 Injured

[Larry J. Kosch]

I heard about a dust storm that left four people dead and 42 injured on a Interstate highway in Arizona:

http://www.kpho.com/Global/story.asp?S=216...61&nav=23KuPmUG

 

[Zach Bailey]

Wow, that's quite a pile-up. Reminds me of the huge pileup that happened in TN as a result of fog on I-75 - saw a show on TV about it a couple of weeks ago. The area the wreck happened in was known for being particularly foggy, and it just happened that there was some chemical plant nearby with huge cooling ponds pumping out tons of moisture. The TV show referred to it as "perfect fog" with 0 visibilty - hence the huge pileup.

 

[Thomas Loades]

The I-10 is apparently infamous for large-scale and fatal pileups in duststorms — I don't know how many there's been, but enough for someone to do a university study on them (according to an episode of Storm Warning I have on tape).

 

[Tim Vasquez]

Figured it would be interesting to look at radar and satellite for the event. Looks like very outflowish storms and very dry ground -- not too different from the Great Plains "haboob" events. Though here it looks like some sort of runaway outflow pool surged south/southeast a little further than would be expected -- maybe it's being driven by that MCS mess up north.

[Broken External Image]:http://www.stormtrack.org/haboob.jpg