Earlier this week, a massive dust storm engulfed Phoenix, providing eye-popping images that made the national news. News anchors latched onto the Arabic word haboob to describe it — even though Arabs have as many words for “dust storm” as Eskimos do for “snow.”
And while I prefer not to show clips from divisive talking heads like Rachel Maddow, I have to credit her team with putting together a supercut of reporters saying “haboob” (video below). Sometimes a big set of haboobs roll through town and everything gets all dirty. It’s no laughing matter. People can choke in haboobs. It’s impossible to take your eyes off of them.
Yes, I am twelve years old.
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Countdown to political flame war in 3…2…1…
As a Phoenix native I’ve seen my fair share of haboobs: big haboobs, small haboobs, haboobs that just seem to rise up out of nowhere and you don’t even notice until they’re right on top of you. But Tuesday’s haboob was by far the biggest, most suffocating haboob I’ve ever experienced.
Did Sarah Jessica Parker empty her vagina over Phoenix or something?
LOL @chadfarthouse. My study partners did not appreciate it.
that eskimo and snow thing is a myth. there is even a meme to describe it’s perpetuation. google snowclone.
She likes it so much because she is a lesbian. Lesbians love weather phenomena
habewb
Ohai Boob!
Next there’ll be an avalanche and the meteorologists will be getting their nuts in a Habunch.
For all the years I have lived on this earth, these things, to my recollection, have been called “dust storms” in the Unites Sates. Why are we now switching to “haboob”, official weather term or not?
“Sometimes a big set of haboobs roll through town and everything gets all dirty.”
Not my motorboat. I moved it out of the way just in time. In a direction perpendicular to the motion of the dust storm. Repeatedly.
I call bullshit. They’ve been called dust storms forever and now all of a sudden every media outlet starts using a different phrase…at the same time? A little fishy if you ask me.
I live in Phoenix. The local media has used this term for a while now. It’s still stupid, but I’m sure its just the national idiots stealing from the local idiots. Also, this happens twice a summer in one form or another. This one just happened to be bigger than most.
And let the conspiracy theorists loose…bunch of wack jobs
only network news can make the internet seem highbrow by comparison.
Sadly the word haboob in Arabic just means thing-a-ma-jig.