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A quick-moving dust storm shrouded southwestern New Mexico and components of northern Mexico in darkness Monday morning, prompting an emergency alert for drivers to “shelter in place” as officers tried to get vehicles off the interstate.
The dust storm, identified meteorologically as a haboob, swept across Deming and Doña Ana counties in New Mexico at a breakneck tempo with near-zero visibility and winds of 45 mph, the National Weather Service warned. State officers closed components of Interstate 10 due to the damaging journey situations. The National Weather Service additionally issued a dust storm warning for components of Interstates 10 and 25 and US Highway 70.
The haboob grew because it whipped east across the dry, dusty panorama. High wind warnings had been in impact Monday within the Southwest alongside low humidity, growing the specter of wildfire.
NOAA climate satellites captured the haboob’s measurement and motion from house, seen beneath highlighted in yellow with NOAA’s dust product, which detects dust and sand-sized particles within the air and distinguishes them from clouds.
A haboob is an excessive kind of dust storm that persists for a number of hours. It’s basically a wall of dust and particles that may develop as much as 5,000 ft tall because it’s blown ahead by robust winds.
You can see the haboob’s wall of dust coming from a distance however by the point it reaches you, it’s too late to hunt shelter — particularly for those who’re behind the wheel of a automobile. It’s practically inconceivable to see various ft in entrance of you within the worst of those storms because the dust chokes out mild.
Drivers ought to pull as far off the highway as attainable once they encounter such a storm, the National Weather Service says. It additionally recommends partaking the parking or hill brake and turning off all lights — together with ensuring the driving force’s foot is off the brake so the brake mild just isn’t illuminated — to keep away from complicated any autos approaching from behind.
Dust storms are most typical in dry, desert areas of the Southwest. An enormous haboob rolled by way of components of California final November.
Watch large dust storm sweep by way of central California
A haboob is simply one of many some ways a day can go from calm to harmful in a matter of moments. Blizzards — just like the one expected in the Plains this week — and dense fog additionally make it troublesome and even inconceivable to see what’s forward.
An enormous, lethal pileup occurred throughout a bout of “super fog” in Louisiana in 2023 after fog and smoke from close by wildfires mixed to crater visibility alongside Interstate 55.
Correction:
An earlier model of this story misstated which highways had been closed as a result of dust storm. Parts of Interstate 10 had been closed.