The towering walls of dust that barrel across Arizona during monsoon season will soon be easier to understand.
A team of 22 meteorologists and weather experts spent years developing the first standardized dust storm scale. It’s designed to classify severity, like the Enhanced Fujita scale that’s used for categorizing tornadoes. The end goal? Safety.
Cronkite reporters and student meteorologists Erica Hoyt and Kayla McDonald followed the development of the Phoenix Dust scale during the 2025 monsoon season for its beta test.
Scroll through the elements below to explore how the scale works, its first time in action, and more about the people and tools behind it.
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