Residents of Phoenix, AZ were stunned to witness the march of a huge sand storm, known by its Arabic name of Haboob, through the city on July 5.  The storm, fifty miles wide and packing winds of over 50 miles an hour, howled its way through with clouds of choking sand hundreds of feet tall, turning late afternoon into night like a solar eclipse.  Residents were forced to retreat indoors, and travellers in their cars pulled over to the side of the streets and highways to wait out the storm.  Sky Harbor was closed, with flights grounded and incoming planes diverted to other airports.  While weather experts say haboobs are not uncommon in the American Southwest, they rarely reach the proportion of this one, which was eerily similar to haboobs recently seen in the Middle East and northern Africa.