Microburst

Last night Jennifer and I where going up to Bogus Basin to do some hiking when all of a sudden this huge dust cloud came and hit the Treasure Valley, fierce winds and all sorts of craziness. Their where winds in excess of 70 miles a hour, debris flying everywhere, trees gettting knocked over(one almost hit my car as I was driving) dust that blocked out the sun, it was nuts. It happened all of a sudden too, we had been watching the weather just a half hour before and it just talked about some thunderstorms on the Oregon border. We could literally see a huge "wall" of dust coming at the city, I had seen storms like this in Iraq but never thought to see one in Boise. Apparently the storm started out as what is known as a gust front and then developed into a microburst. A microburst is a strong downdraft which includes an outburst of potentially damaging winds on or near the ground.