Dust Storm in Nevada

When I got up this morning, I could barely see the nearby East Range and couldn't see the Eugene Mountains at all for all the thick dust. I eventually went out to get some coffee, and ended up searching for locations to get a few photos. The dust had cleared a little, though. The above shot shows the partly hidden East Range (and doesn't show the completely hidden Eugene Mountains). The closer part of the East Range is about 9 miles away; the Eugene Mountains are 24 miles away.

Here's a shot looking more or less east toward the Sonoma Range, which at only 8 miles distance look pretty hazy.

Off to the north, things weren't quite as hazy, although you can still see a white haze.

After getting coffee, I looked at the weather satellite photos for the Pacific Southwest, which clearly showed a large dust storm, probably a haboob, moving northward and eastward from the Fallon and Carson Sink area, beginning around 8:00pm last night, continuing as late as 11:00pm. By the time I remembered to grab a screen shot of the satellite photos, it was late this afternoon, so I couldn't capture the beginning.

These screen shots are from about 8:00pm PST last night. I've added the outline of the front of the dust plume in the second shot.

Twelve Months of LFD (2015)

I'm doing the year-end meme wherein I compile the first sentence of the first post of every month. Meme rules are as follows, as per DrugMonkey:

Post the link and first sentence from the first blog entry for each month of the past year.

I've also added the photo from the same first post, if there happened to be one. I've removed any captions from the photos, so if you want to find out more about locations, etc, you'll have to click through. The first sentences include some classically long, LFD-style sentences, one short sentence, and many that are in between. Previous takes on this Twelve Month meme at LFD were posted for 2008, 2009, 2010, 2012, and 2014.

Aaand...here's the year 2015 for LFD:
January:

A year ago today, a thin snow highlighted some Lake Lahontan shorelines on basalt-capped hills out in (or near) the Fernley Wildlife Management Area (FWMA):

February:

Yesterday, when out hiking in nearby Water Canyon (before the Super Bowl), MOH and I slowly (at least for me) made our way up a variably steep, grassy to rocky hillside until we came to a large rib of quartzite.

March:

Well, I'm back at the place I was working at about two years ago (see these three posts for more info), spending more time on a back paved road and on dirt roads than I was most recently while on the road to work (I'm still driving on the interstate some, but a lot less than during the last two years).

April:

It was a very windy day as I drove south along what's variably called the Surprise Valley Road or the Sand Pass Road (and to the north, is often called the Smoke Creek Road) into the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe's Reservation.

May:

It is often — more commonly than in the past, IMO — hazy or dusty in north-central Nevada where I routinely work and often travel, here and there across basins and over ranges.

June:

An El Niño has supposedly set in (starting when, exactly, I'm not sure).

July: Nada. Zip. Zero.

August:

Neil Young: Rockin' in the Free World (lyrics) Album: Freedom, 1989

This is technically a road song because it mentions streets twice and roads once, and because the video that came out with the song also shows a lot of streets.

September:

There I was minding my own business while flying north from RNO to SEA (that is to say, I was reading a thick book and trying to ignore a seatmate while crammed against the window near the rear of a Q400), when I looked out (to the east) and spotted the peak of an Oregon volcano sticking out through what I first thought was a low, thick cloud cover.

October:

South of the Klondyke District (our previous stop on this journey) and just north of Goldfield, one reaches one of the northernmost populations of Joshua trees (Yucca brevifolia)—or the northernmost population, depending on what range map you use.

November:

In later years—in the future of the 1976 "present" of these ongoing thesis-hunt stories—I made my way back into the Palmetto-Magruder area barely a handful of times.

December:

When I pulled up to Lida Summit two years ago—I was on my way to a property examination and had decided to check out the Lida and Palmetto areas—I stopped right in front of...a roadcut!

Dust Storm at The Needle Rocks, Pyramid Lake

It was a very windy day as I drove south along what's variably called the Surprise Valley Road or the Sand Pass Road (and to the north, is often called the Smoke Creek Road) into the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe's Reservation.

Various signs at the north entrance to the reservation.

I could see the dust -- and the faded outline of the Lake Range beyond the curve. The signs are located at the north end of Reservation Route 2, according to this map. I wasn't really thinking about the names of the ranges or the numbers of the road while driving, I was really focused mostly on the wind and dust!

Soon, The Needle Rocks came into view.

A modified view, as if I were still into shooting B&W film.

Now we can see the bright turquoise color of Pyramid Lake. And still the dust.

I'd highly recommend not going out the The Needles in such a storm (and besides, it is closed these days) -- a few of the higher shorelines of the lake (of Lake Lahontan) are composed of tiny snail shells (Pyrgulopsis nevadensis, photos here, here, and here) -- and you really don't want those sharp tiny things caught in your eye!

The wind was really whipping up the dust.

Looking back from farther south.

I had a pretty good view of part of the Terraced Hills beyond the dust, and could see part of Wizards Beach and Wizards Cove, but most of the individual rocks at The Needles were well obscured (USGS TNM 2.0 Viewer map). The wind looked to be blowing in from the west or northwest.

A closeup from the same place, with a good view of rock 3935 out in the lake, and an obscured view of the tip of The Needles and tufa mound 4107.

And finally, I looked back across Thunderbolt Bay from near a green area marked Pyramid (USGS TNM 2.0 Viewer map, USGS GNIS locale "Pyramid").

Photos from a road trip taken on March 31, 2015.

Back on a Sometimes Muddy Road

Well, I'm back at the place I was working at about two years ago (see these three posts for more info), spending more time on a back paved road and on dirt roads than I was most recently while on the road to work (I'm still driving on the interstate some, but a lot less than during the last two years). I find that I prefer the back roads and the dirt: I feel a bit like I'm going out in the field every day, although I'm really not.

It means that the road is sometimes wet, muddy, snowy, icy, or sometimes it has been recently sprayed by a water truck or recently magged. I decided to take a few pics of what that looks like on my jeep (in this case, the road had been sprayed by a water truck to keep the dust down). I wasn't actually on the road to work when taking the pictures, but instead had pulled over on a convenient side road while traveling elsewhere after a couple/few days at work. Consequently the tags include two locations; the post location (below) links to the photos.

The front of said jeep, the Eugene Mountains in the background.

The right side, with part of the East Range in the background.
The rear tire looks low, but isn't.

The rear and left sides. That's a high part of the East Range with the snow.

And the door handle area of the left, driver's side door.

More Dust Devils

I often have occasion to see dust devils while traveling through Nevada, especially in the dryer months, but any time of year can afford the right conditions: a dry playa or dirt road (and other surfaces, read more here) and thermally unstable air. And so, while driving through the Fortymile Desert and about to pass by the Nightingale Hot Springs exit on I-80 back in early October —  the exit name combines two locations into one: Nightingale is from an old mining district and ghost town  in the Nightingale Mountains north of the freeway; Hot Springs is from the geothermal area at Brady's Hot Springs just south of the freeway — I noticed a large plume of dust rising from the desert just north of the highway. I pulled off, securing a viewing point near a powerline road crossing the main road going north to Nightingale.

Several dust devils, including the large, obviously whirling one, and a few tiny ones. Photo looks southwest toward basalt covered hills on the east side of the Truckee Range.

The large devil and three small ones apparently trailing it.

The same large dust devil, this time with two tiny ones seemingly leading.

Here, the same large dust devil appears to get all torqued out of shape!

Later, just for good measure, I took a photo of this devil, also in the Fortymile Desert; our view is southward toward the West Humboldt Range.

This last devil was located about 14 or 15 miles east of the group near the Nightingale Hot Springs exit. The white, rectangular thing on the horizon in the left part of the photo is a semi heading north on U.S. 95, about to reach I-80 near the old site of Trinity (MSRMaps location; Google Maps location).

Dust Hole

I was out driving around the other day, basically following I-80 from Lovelock to Reno, and I decided to take what I thought would be a short side trip, getting off at Toulon to check out a bit of remaining old Highway 40 just east of the Humboldt Dike.

After checking out the old alignment, I thought about turning around and going back to Toulon to get on the freeway, then decided to go on toward the old site of Trinity, where U.S. 95 south to Fallon meets I-80. Go forward, not back! To do this, I drove southwest on an easy portion of what turned out to be a long, tedious, and very rocky section of powerline road.

Near the top of the first rise, the road narrowed and turned rocky and then went into the first of a series of sideways excursions across several large and small washes coming south out of the south Trinity Range. Near the bottom of the first of these washes, I pushed my way through a small silt hole (I was already in 4WD in order to go slower over the sharp volcanic rocks). Rather than stopping and backing through the thing or trying to turn around at this somewhat late point (and thinking that Trinity would be just over the next rise), I kept going, only to suddenly find myself heading into an immense, roiled dust hole cut into old Lake Lahontan lake sediments (or Tertiary intra-volcanic sediments). I leaned on the gas pedal, thinking that if I came to a stop in the middle of the hole, I would be stuck and would have to send a SPOT help message or walk out to I-80 (or both). Waves of dust washed over the jeep covering it entirely, and for the last part of the hole, I couldn't see a thing. I didn't have time to turn on my window wipers, which probably wouldn't have helped anyway, and I kept going like a person with their eyes shut, trying to remember the next part of the road from the brief glance I had gotten.

I made it through, and instead of stopping to take any pictures of it, I continued on, just wanting to get the hell out of there. After a steep bit or two through rocks I actually scraped over a little (this is hard to do with the excellent clearance the jeep has), I arrived at the top of the next rise.

On an obscure powerline road, looking southwestward toward Trinity.

From the top of the rise, I could see that I had at least one more major wash to cross and more than a mile to go. At this point, I was just short of half way there (although I didn't really know that at the time), and I knew that I wouldn't be turning around to go back to Toulon, because I wasn't going to drive through that second dust hole twice in one day. (Or ever again!)

Here, I'm looking northeast across the wash I had just crossed.

Both dust holes are visible in the photo enlargement below, just right of the powerline in roiled, light-colored sediments in the center of the broad wash area:

From looking at this in Google Earth, I'm pretty sure that only the beginning of the second dust hole (the one closest to us) is fully visible in the photo.

I was running enough adrenaline right then, that I didn't try harder to get a better picture — I was focused more on getting out of there as quickly as possible and getting back to the highway!  I hurriedly cleaned the dust off the windows of the jeep, and drove on toward Trinity.

The view of the second hole that I would have had if I'd walked back over the hill a short distance.

When I got to Trinity, I took out the air filter out of the jeep and shook the dust out of it.

View Toulon to Trinity in a larger map

After getting onto I-80, I accelerated to traveling speed (warp 7.5+ or 75-80 mph; warp speed terminology on roads and highways explained here), leaving a trail of dust behind me for several miles, perhaps as far as about halfway to Nightingale Hot Springs.

Phew! Maybe I'll go back someday to get a better photo of the hole. Maybe.

(See embedded Google Maps view above for location of all geographic points of interest mentioned in this post.)

Escape from the July 20 Haboob in Western Nevada

At 3:37 pm, July 20th, my phone made a strange and loud noise in my pocket, and I took it out to find the first of two emergency alerts that I would receive from the National Weather Service.

The first NWS alert, for the Lovelock area, is on the bottom.

Besides the emergency alert sound, similar to that of the emergency broadcast system on radio and TV, the "Severe" and "Avoid travel" were phrases that caught the attention of the two geologists working that day, geologists who were hoping to leave in about an hour, but not particularly sooner.

UPDATE 29Jul2014: Also note that the Severe Alerts above mentioned "Dust Storm," not using the word "Haboob," which according to Wikipedia is derived from the Arabic word habūb, meaning "blasting/drafting." (I've seen other, similar derivations and translations of Arabic words and don't know which are most accurate.) Nevertheless, as you will see below, what we were about to witness was a huge dust storm with a miles-long wall of dust, often called a haboob in many parts of the world, including Arizona.

Our first glance outside wasn't too encouraging with regard to travel.

First view of the haboob on the east side of the valley: a wall of dust coming up from the south.

After looking around outside, we rushed to put things in order, piled into a truck, and left town. We didn't really want to hang around until 8 pm or whenever visibility would return.

To begin with, I thought the dust was a fairly localized phenomenon coming from the Humboldt Sink, which is about 10 to 15 miles southwest of Lovelock, or perhaps it was coming from the combined Humboldt and Carson Sinks. The Carson Sink is the very large sink for the Carson River, located 15 to 35 miles south of Lovelock, beyond the West Humboldt Range. I'd never seen the Humboldt Sink kick up quite this much dust on its own, so I had to entertain a larger possibility.

Shot of the haboob approaching Lovelock from the south. In this shot it has started to ride up over the south end of the Trinity Range beyond I-80, thereby already having overridden I-80 out near Toulon.

Three stitched-together photos of the same wall of dust, taken at 3:52 pm as we were scrambling to leave. The dust was already encroaching onto trees usually in view to the south.

As we got onto the on ramp for I-80, the dust looked like it would shortly pass over the Golden Gate truck stop (shown as Port of Subs and only approximately located by Google on this map)

A first look back at the dust after getting on I-80.

Many of the next shots (and the one above) were taken looking into the side mirror on the passenger side of the truck (the one that says "Objects In Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear"). I've reversed these mirror shots to show more accurately the shape of the hills and mountains behind us as we drove north and northeast toward Winnemucca.

The haboob is now about to overrun the Lovelock L in the southern Humboldt Range (Google Maps location of the L).

Somewhere between the Oreana and Rye Patch exits, I could see that the wall of dust had gone past Coal Canyon (Google Maps location) and was steadily moving northward.

Just past Rye Patch, it looked like the dust storm had fully moved into Rochester Canyon (Google Maps location) and possibly, though not clearly, into Limerick Canyon (marked as "Lovelock-Unionville Road" by Google on the previous map).

Shot of the haboob from just northeast of Humboldt House. The trees are at Humboldt House; the small reddish hill on the left is one of the heap leach piles at Florida Canyon.

When we rounded the corner at Humboldt House (Google Maps location) and the Florida Canyon Mine, the sight of the huge wall of dust engulfing the Trinity Range behind us reminded me of a giant pyroclastic cloud (not that I've ever seen one IRL). The dust was billowing and looked like it was eating everything it its path.

The haboob approaches a small rain shower in the Trinity Range.

Dust in Buena Vista Valley. The TA truckstop near the Mill City exit is visible in the distance to the right (west) of I-80.

As we went past the Unionville exit (behind us in the photo above), dust was rising from Buena Vista Valley beyond the low, brownish hills near the Star Point Trading Post and RV park, and I thought that all we were seeing was non-haboob from Buena Vista Valley and possibly from the Carson Sink.

At this point in this photo-log, you might notice that some photos are oversharpened, due to motion, relative darkness, and an obviously improper ASA (ISO) setting by the photographer. I probably should have switched to an ASA of 800 or higher, and was probably using a normally adequate setting of 400.

Another view of dust in Buena Vista Valley and the east side of the Humboldt Range. The trees are at the constantly closed Cosgrave rest stop
(Google Maps location).

A centered view of the Humboldt Range looking south-southwest down I-80.
The tiny-looking, triangular knob in the broad central part of the range is Thunder Mountain. Star Peak is the high point to the left; the high point to the right is probably Van Zant Peak.

I could now see dust on both sides of the Humboldt Range, and I began to suspect that there was only one dust storm.

Dust now appears to be coming over the top of the Humboldt Range in the gaps between Thunder Mountain and Star and Van Zant Peaks.

All three peaks top 9000 feet, with Star Peak coming in at 9840 ft or 2999 m. The valley floors on either side of the range are at about 4150 to 4500 feet, and Imlay sits at 4200 feet (< 1300 m) just north of the north end of the range (Imlay at MSRMaps).

Looking back at our final view of the Humboldt Range as we approach the Rose Creek exit just east of Winnemucca.

The haboob (above) has now moved fully into the valley of the Humboldt River at Imlay, and it looks like it's about to start riding up the south flank of the Eugene Mountains on the far right (Google Maps location of Imlay, with the Eugene Mountains to the north). Dust is coming around both sides of the Humboldt Range to potentially merge into one wall at the north end of the range. At about this time, I received the second of my wireless alerts (first image at the beginning of the post).

As we approach Winnemucca, dust is rising in Grass Valley ahead of a thunderstorm coming in from the south.

Dust devil in Grass Valley.

Dust in Grass Valley on the right, and what appears to be dust beyond the low, north end of the Sonoma Range, somewhere out near Golconda.

A shot more clearly showing that some of the dust is rising east of the Sonoma Range rather than being confined to Grass Valley.
This last photo was taken at 4:52 pm.

Until we rounded the corner going into Winnemucca near the Rose Creek exit, we had experienced no wind (or very minor wind, especially compared to the usual norms), and there had been absolutely none when we left work just ahead of the wall of dust. Now, the wind was strong from the south or southeast, and we were glad to have arrived in town just barely ahead of the main part of the dust storm. I settled into the apt, and, looking out the front and back windows every now and then, I noticed persistent though mostly patchy dust and a short-term disappearance of Winnemucca Mountain to the north — nothing like the wall of dust we had seen earlier! It rained later, and the next day we found out that winds had been strong upon the arrival of the haboob in Lovelock, strong enough to knock down tree branches. Streets were wet and puddled at work the next morning, and life went back to normal, albeit with less haze and fire-related smoke, which had been prevalent before the storms.

I had immediately, upon arrival at the apt, looked up the satellite photo for the area to see if the passage of the haboob could be seen. I thought maybe it could:

Visible satellite image for 23:30 Z, or 4:30 pm PDT.

What I noticed while running the loop that ended with this image, was that apparent wind and dust movement was to the north all along a zone across northwestern Nevada (above, from about Reno to north of Battle Mountain). Also, outward from Nevada and the Basin and Range in a very large circular "front," the many patches of combined storms, clouds, and dust appeared to be moving broadly or generally away from the center of Utah or an ill-defined area in northern Arizona. I don't know whether this was all part of the same storm system, but below I've drawn in bright cyan what I think was the approximate line of the haboob with trailing and collapsing (?) thunderstorms behind it, and I've put in a few arrows showing apparent drift of wind, dust, and clouds in bright magenta:

Cartoon of possible location of haboob across northwestern Nevada in cyan; wind directions as apparently indicated by moving dust and storms are shown by magenta arrows. These are my interpretations only and have not been verified by a meteorologist.

Dust hit Lovelock shortly after 3:55 pm; dust was moving across I-80 in Winnemucca by 4:50 pm; dust was about to move into Gerlach in a big way as of 5:57 pm. I didn't find a lot about the haboob online, although it was mentioned by a few local news broadcasts that I can't access, and was mentioned in this RGJ news story. There were a few pictures, a blog post, and two videos of people on I-80 driving farther into the storm than I would have thought wise. The first video in particular shows the movement of the dust storm fairly well; the second shows somewhat more prudent driving.

The original weather alert by the NWS for Churchill County "INCLUDING PYRAMID LAKE-INCLUDING THE CITIES OF. FERNLEY. FALLON. LOVELOCK. SILVER SPRINGS" and remaining in effect until 8 pm is archived here; the original NWS alert for Humboldt County "INCLUDING THE FOLLOWING LOCATIONS. WINNEMUCCA. MCDERMITT. PARADISE VALLEY. GOLCONDA SUMMIT" and remaining in effect until 11 pm is archived here.

How to drive in a haboob or large dust storm (STOP DRIVING!!: DO NOT ENTER THE STORM!! DO NOT USE FLASHERS!! Pull farther off the road than shown in the above videos — ALL the way over past the paved or flat to sloping shoulder! READ THE PAGE AT THE LINK!!).

More about Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA).
Wikipedia on haboobs.
The Northern Nevada Haboob (of May 22, 2014).

P.S. This is my 1004th post!