A cold front blowing across the High Plains earlier this week brought drifts of tumbleweeds. It also created a haboob. That's a dust storm that typically last about three hours with sand and dirt forming a “dense whirling wall” up to 3,000 feet high according to the American Meteorological Society’s glossary.
Jon Erdman is the Senior Meteorologist at Weather.com. He says the storm was able to "loft dust easily" partly because of the extreme drought conditions that exist in southeastern Colorado, western Kansas, northeast New Mexico, and the panhandles of Oklahoma and Texas.
The cold front was an end to a long stretch of warm weather. Colorado State Climatologist Nolan Doesken says temperatures won’t be as cold by the end of the week, but another cold front is on the way.
