MARICOPA COUNTY, Ariz. — A monsoon storm hit the region hard Thursday evening, bringing high winds, low visibility and a massive wall of rolling dust from the south, reports CBS Phoenix affiliate KPHO-TV. “It is a huge one,” said Jerry Ferguson, form the station’s news helicopter. “This is a classic Arizona dust storm barreling across the southeast Valley.”
“This is one where we can’t really see through it. It’s pretty thick,” he said.
By 6:30 p.m., the wall of dust was headed directly toward the ASU Tempe campus and toward the airport, where planes were landing.
“He’s in the dust now. Oh, boy!” said Ferguson as a plane made its way through the thick soup of the dust cloud. “There goes that plane into the wall of dust. We’ll say that pilot has a lot of courage!”
A viewer whose plane was landing at Sky Harbor Airport just as the dust was rolling in sent KPHO an image.
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