A strong pacific storm front moved through the southwest today, bringing very strong winds  but no precipitation. The dominant wind direction was out of the south-west. Severe dust was viewable from satellite by both visible band and thermal imaging in the Four Corners area. Activity was apparent from early morning on to well after sunset. Interstate 40 in Arizona was closed from Winona to Winslow for most of the day. Peak gusts in the Winslow area at the heart of the western dust sources reached 77mph. Very late in the day just at sunset new dust emissions became evident from the White Sands area of New Mexico. Light levels were too low to pick out clearly the dust plumes that developed there from the GOES imagery. Its worthy to note in the MODIS images below there is obvious red discoloration of the cloud cover and the snow pack in Colorado.

See Videos Page for Time-lapse Videos of the Dust Storm

Modis Image 10am Localtime	Modis Image 2pm Localtime
GOES 11 Visible Image Band 9:45 localtime	GOES 11 Thermal Bands Differenced 11am localtime
Wind Model Projections Courtesy of Gary Cloud, USGS
Looking East from USGS Flagstaff Science Center at Dust on Horizon. Non Filtered Image	Looking East from USGS Flagstaff Science Center at Dust Plume. Image taken with Polarizing Filter.