High Winds and Dust Storms this week!

Back East, it's not unusual to have high winds during strong thunderstorms, but here, on Monday, we had an entire day of tropical storm force winds under clear skies. It was all thanks to a strong cold front coming out of the North Pacific. In the Cascade passes, over a foot of wind driven snow piled up on the slopes and on the road. Down on the east side of the Cascades, we had a full day of 40 mph winds, with gusts to 65 mph. In the back of our townhouse complex, a massive evergreen (not native to the desert here!) was uprooted and smashed into a fenceline guarding the houses behind the complex.
When the wind gets strong enough here, it means dust storms. We have very light, dry soil over here that has a high content of volcanic ash. The wind whips the dust from the fields and from open exposed desert, and turns the sky a hazy brown. It's mostly a spring thing, as it's associated with the strong storms that come in off the Pacific, which die down in May and June.
Aisling was working on the farm...well really she was stuck inside tending to half of her job, which is to handle the stream of e-mails from CSA subscribers. All of the farm laborers went home to avoid getting dust in their eyes and lungs. Aisling stayed until mid-afternoon, but had to rush back to town because she found out that the road to the farm was going to be closing soon.