The Great Arizona Haboob
I’ve lived in Arizona for 15 years now. That’s 15 years of heat, amazing winter weather, monsoons and whatever else Mother Nature has blessed our Sonoran Desert with. Occasionally, we even have dust storms, where the wind blows dust hard and covers everything in its path.
So, for 15 years now I’ve experienced the forces of Mother Nature but something happened this year. 2011 is the first year I’ve ever heard dust storms called – Haboobs.
WTF is a Haboob
Who the hell came up with this term? More importantly, why are we just calling dust storms Haboobs now? Hurricanes have always been hurricanes, tornados have always been tornados and monsoons have always been called monsoons – where did this term come from?
So this is what happens now in Arizona: the wind picks up and dust blows and people (the news is especially guilty) start saying here come another Haboob. Huh? Really?
I know Haboob is not a new word. Haboob is an Arabic for strong winds. Haboobs probably date back to when Moses walked through the desert, but why are we just using this term now? I just don’t get it…
Article by Greg Taylor
Founder of WordPress Development Company, Marketing Press. Vegetarian. Hopelessly addicted to music. Blogger, Collaborator, Phoenix Suns fan. NJ Native living in AZ
Greg has contributed 160 articles to this site.
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If it doesn’t matter what we call dust storms in the U.S. Midwest, then why the sudden urgency to call them “haboobs”?
It seems odd there are so many here and in other forums on this topic who are eager to jump in and demean those who question the use of the word when in fact it is a new adoption of an Arabic word and has no precedent nor reason in this country and region for being other than novelty and to portray a facade of “worldliness”. If calling a “dust storm” a “haboob” is so worldly, then why not the reverse? English is the de facto universal language, after all..
Here in the U.S. we have “Dust Storms”. Do you think that in the Middle East the weathermen and agendists are stumbling all over each other to use the the term “Dust Storm” to describe a haboob? Do you believe that if that were the case that the majority of thinking Middle Easterners wouldn’t question the sudden adoption of an English term for a Middle Eastern weather phenomena?
Does a certain usual segment of our U.S society constantly do or say absurd things or adopt incongruous practices for the sake of appearing “progressive” and “worldly” and to portray themselves as cultural illuminati? Yes.