Arizona Weather: Dust Storm Warning Issued, Over 25,000 Homes Without Power

The National Weather Service (NWS) issued a dust storm warning for several parts of Arizona on Sunday evening after storms brought strong winds, rain and hail to Phoenix area. The storm caused multiple outages in the valley, leaving more than 25,000 homes without power.

The dust storm warning was issued for Interstate 10 between mile markers 113 and 165, Interstate 17 between mile markers 0 and 48 and U.S. 60 between mile markers 0 and 148.

The storm moved into eastern portions of metro Phoenix and northern Pinal County on Sunday, which was first followed by heavy rain, NWS said, adding a severe thunderstorm warning was in effect in Casa Grande, Maricopa and Arizona City.

Local daily Mohave Valley Daily News reported a major power line near the intersection of Bullhead Parkway and Laughlin Ranch Boulevard was damaged in the storm.

The line served most of Bullhead City and sections of Fort Mohave, the Mohave Electric Cooperative said, adding its transmission system was also damaged and several power poles were broken. About 29,000 meters of line were affected by the storm; however, 15,000 meters of line had power restored.

“Getting the transmission system energized was the first big step which restored power to all but 450 meters. The storm dealt us a brutal hand. This is the most expansive outage we have experienced in more than a decade,” said Rick Campos with The Mohave Electric Cooperative.

A monsoon storm caused havoc in the valley Friday as heavy flooding closed several roads in Arizona. Heavy flooding forced the closure of U.S. 60 on both directions, the Arizona Department of Transportation said. The agency added the area near the highway received 3.63 inches of rain in one hour. Several roads around the Tempe Arizona State University campus were also closed.

East Valley witnessed several outages, which left over 13,000 customers without power, with most coming from the Apache Junction area.

Flash flood and dust storm warnings were issued for Tempe, Queen Creek, Apache Junction and Chandler on Friday as monsoon storm brought heavy winds up to 50 miles per hour in the areas.

The Friday storm was the third in a row to hit the Arizona last week.

The NWS issued flash flood and dust storm warnings for the areas in and around Phoenix city Wednesday. The monsoon storm knocked out power in the East Valley, including Mesa and Tempe, with a total of nearly 60,000 customers listed without power.

Several areas in the valley received heavy rains up to 2 inches in about an hour Wednesday and the city streets also witnessed flooding.

Lightning struck two teens in a park in El Mirage during Wednesday's storm. The two 14-year-old boys were rushed to a nearby hospital after one of them suffered severe injuries while the other went into cardiac arrest.

Several people were also trapped inside their cars after storms toppled power poles onto the vehicles near Deer Valley and Scottsdale roads Wednesday.