3-2-09 Dust Storm

Most of you probably haven't seen too many dust storms, so I figured I'd take some pics and show you. We've had some rain on the Owens Dry Lake the last few weeks which typically pulls salts out of the soils as the soils dry out. The salt becomes "fluffy" and the next big winds create large dust storms. These latest dust storms are the largest we've seen this dust "season."

These pics were taken yesterday (3/2).




This was the view driving in from Keeler to Lone Pine this morning (3/3). At this point the dust was moving up into the Alabama Hills, but had not yet impacted Lone Pine.

It didn't take long before the winds cranked up, shifted a little more to the east, and hit Lone Pine. This is Main Street in Lone Pine.

On the way back to Keeler the dust plume looked like a fog bank.

In the "old" days, before the city of L.A. began mitigating the dust producing areas on the lakebed, these dust storms would have been much worse. Obviously they still have some work to do though.