A golden dust storm moves into the frame from left, where a small farmhouse and scrub grass is visible beneath a cloudy blue sky
Photo by Theresa DiMenno

Austin-based photographer Theresa DiMenno had plans to capture the golden hour in Fort Davis one April afternoon when the cumulus clouds started to look odd. “My first thought was fire, which wouldn’t have surprised me as we’d been under a fire weather watch all day, but I didn’t smell smoke,” DiMenno says. She decided to investigate, driving 6 miles northeast. “The clouds became eerie and the energy unsettling,” DiMenno says. She pulled over to photograph the brewing storm but soon realized it was a dust cloud heading her way. She turned around, stopping to take another photo as golden light raked across the landscape. “There was blue sky and clouds to my right and a massive dust cloud to my left,” she says. “I took a few shots and arrived at the hotel seconds before the dust storm, called a haboob, overtook the entire area.”

From the December 2023 issue

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