The Return of the Dust Bowl?
How the immense dust storm that hit Phoenix, AZ last week could become the new norm.
Last week a dust storm a 100 miles wide and nearly a mile high hit Phoenix, Arizona; the result of thunderstorm cooled air plummeting into the ground. Wired Science explained it like mist pouring out of an open freezer, "only exponentially more powerful." The extreme drought in the area allowed these powerful winds to kick up cubic tons of dust that rolled over the Phoenix area; the biggest, meteorologists say, in at least 30 years. Many have compared it to the bizarre dust storms in Sydney, Australia and China's Gobi Desert. Others call it a return to the devastating Dust Bowl storms that decimated agriculture land and livelihoods.
