What’s with all that Houston haze? It’s dust from a West Texas haboob

HOUSTON – A dry west wind is pushing in behind the cold front that blasted through the Houston area on Tuesday morning, and that air has been blowing in from the deserts of West Texas.

In fact, if you’ve noticed some significant haze to the sky, that is some leftover dust from a haboob (i.e. dust storm) that blasted through West Texas on Monday behind the cold front.

As we were awaiting the cold front early Tuesday morning, areas of West Texas saw a significant dust storm, which in meteorology, it’s called a haboob. The massive storm was ripping through parts of the region with winds of 50 to 60 mph and an enormous cloud of dust. The strong pushed the dust across the state and with the help of mixing the air near the surface as the sun came up Tuesday morning, pulled that dust into our area. That made for a very hazy Tuesday afternoon.

Once the sun goes down Tuesday night and the dust (literally and figuratively) settles, we should see less hazy skies Wednesday as more clouds and eventually rain showers return to wash out the atmosphere for Wednesday and Thursday.

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