VIDEO: Maricopa haboob described by residents as 'darker than night'

At 5:35 p.m., the sun vanished over Maricopa.

A wall of dust, rising hundreds of feet into the sky, rolled across the city and the greater Phoenix valley, swallowing commuters and neighborhoods in a sudden darkness, described as “darker than night.”

It was a haboob, the kind of storm the National Weather Service defines as “a towering wall of dust carried on strong thunderstorm outflow winds.” For the next few hours, it unsettled a Monday evening and cut power for hundreds across Maricopa.

According to an Electrical District No. 3 outage map, storm-related failures knocked out electricity in pockets across the service area. Stanfield took the brunt of it, with 109 homes losing power. Forty-seven households lost power in one sudden gust, restored within minutes.

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