Trend Watch

Haboob

When a massive dust storm rolled through Phoenix ...

When:

Lookups spiked on July 6, 2011.

Why:

On July 5, a massive dust storm rolled through Phoenix, AZ.

In describing the mile-high billowing wave, many media reports (and viral videos like this) referred to the storm as a "haboob."

The word comes from the Arabic habŪb, which means "violent storm".

Photo credit: Titoxd / flickr


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