8/9/2014 Emily Atkin 
Left: A wall of dust moves across a freeway in Phoenix, Saturday afternoon, Sept. 6. Right: A truck creates a wake as its driver tries to navigate a severely flooded street as heavy rains pour down Monday, Sept. 8, 2014, in Phoenix. CREDIT: AP Photos/Katie Oyan/Ross D. Franklin It’s been an interesting few days in Phoenix, Arizona. A huge dust storm — known as a “haboob” — blanketed the area on Saturday, blowing thick sand on wind gusts between 25 to 40 miles per hour. And Monday was the wettest day in the city’s recorded history, breaking a 75-year-old record for rainfall. It was only 9:30 a.m. on Monday when the rainfall record was broken, with Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport reporting 3.29 inches of rain since midnight, according to Phoenix’s local CBS affiliate. That surpassed the previous daily record of 2.91 inches, the most rain since Phoenix began record-keeping in 1895. As of publication, more than 4 inches of rain had fallen so far in Phoenix. The rare heavy rainfall led to flooding that inundated freeways and stranded drivers on the side of the road. As The Weather Channel notes, the desert terrain surrounding Phoenix is already incapable of absorbing a lot of water — a situation that gets even worse when heavy rainfall hits the concrete-laden city, which also can’t absorb water.  Source: thinkprogress.org |