A Blowing Dust Advisory was in effect from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday for Pinal County and the southern portions of Maricopa County, including Queen Creek, as thunderstorms continued to churn across the region. The warning came as some outflow winds and blowing dust could still reach the Phoenix metro later tonight.
Residents in the advisory area were being told to expect reduced visibility, with the greatest dust threat staying in Pinal County. A Severe Thunderstorm Watch was also in effect for southern Arizona, including Pinal County, until 10 p.m., underscoring how active the weather was as the evening wore on.
The advisory matters because it sits inside a broader storm pattern already bringing scattered thunderstorms to southeastern and north-central Arizona on Saturday evening. Some of those storms were expected to produce heavy rain, strong wind gusts and more blowing dust, with a Sunday First Alert Day pointing to another round of unsettled weather.
That next round could be the more disruptive one. There was a 40% chance of showers and thunderstorms developing late Sunday afternoon and continuing into the evening, and a few storms could become severe with damaging wind gusts. Some neighborhoods could pick up 0.10 to 0.25 inches of rain, while blowing dust was expected to be possible again on Sunday.
The pattern does not shut off after that. A 20% chance of showers and thunderstorms remained on Monday, slight rain chances were expected on Tuesday and Wednesday, and rain and storm chances were expected to increase again toward the end of the week. Highs were expected to stay near 108 degrees through Wednesday, dip to around 105 degrees on Thursday, then fall into the upper 90s to around 100 degrees by Friday and Saturday.
For now, the immediate question is not whether the dust exists — it does — but how much of it drifts beyond Pinal County before the system weakens. If the outflow boundaries hold together, the Phoenix metro could see some of that dust later tonight, but the center of the problem is still where it began: the dry, gusty edge of the storms already moving across the Valley.
