Amato Evan was in the desert when the dust storm arrived. Evan was near Ocotillo Wells, in the western foothills of the Imperial Valley. The winds approached from the West as the sun was setting, stirring up the powdery soil. Suddenly, the dust was all around them. Evan tried to keep an eye on the ground, but he could barely see where he was going. His heart raced.
In Yosemite National Park, hikers were surprisingly soaked this weekend as summer storms blew through the area. Meanwhile, thunderstorms across California's mountains launched rapid-fire lightning strikes that sparked several forest fires. And as Burning Man kicked off in Nevada's desert northwest, a major dust storm forced traffic to a halt as attendees tried to avoid the desert's wrath. The impetus for this widespread wild weather was a late-arriving monsoonal pattern, fueled by the region's lingering heat that pulled atmospheric moisture north - and, with it,
"Dust events are a big problem, especially in the Central Valley, and have not gotten enough attention," UC Merced professor Adeyemi Adebiyi said in a May 2025 article published by the university.
