A Haboob In Iowa? One Hit Part Of Northwest Iowa Thursday

Haboob is a funny-sounding word. It's pronounced basically how it looks, hu-boob. But what is a haboob and what was one doing in northwest Iowa? On Thursday, drought conditions and strong winds caused this haboob to form and move through parts of Minnesota, South Dakota, and Iowa leaving dust everywhere.

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Residents in northwest Iowa saw something very rare on Thursday. A dust storm called a haboob rolled through parts of southwestern Minnesota, southeast South Dakota, and northwestern Iowa. This weather phenomenon isn't rare in places like Arizona or New Mexico, but they are pretty rare in Iowa.

On Thursday, meteorologists Nick Stewart and Rebecca Kopelman from Iowa News Now captured the haboob rolling through near the town of Little Rock, IA. As you can see in the video, the haboob looks like a huge dust ball, but the strong winds had the haboob moving steadily. Stewart says that winds were gusting up to 70+ mph.

The dust had visibility down to zero and as you can see in the video, dust was blowing all over the place. But what caused a haboob to form in northwest Iowa?

Iowa News Now meteorologists Nathan Sato Domingo says that drought conditions in northwest Iowa, most of South Dakota, and basically all of Nebraska mixed with strong winds formed the haboob.

As you can see from the National Weather Service station in Sioux Falls, the haboob ripped right past their office.

You can also see a sped-up version of Stewart's and Kopelman's experience with the haboob in northwest Iowa below.

The haboob could be classified as a derecho with its strong wind speeds. The National Weather Service will or will not eventually categorize it as one. We know a little bit about Derechos around here in the Quad Cities. Let's go back to August of 2020 with photos of the Derecho damage in the QC.