That’s the vibe of a video Waymo posted to its Reddit page on Tuesday, just a day after a massive wall of dust — what we locals call a haboob — rolled into Phoenix and engulfed everything in sight.
Waymo Navigates a Haboob in Phoenix After Monsoon Storms
byu/mingoslingo92 inwaymo
It was the first such mega-dust monsoon storm of 2025, beginning around Eloy southeast of the Phoenix metro area on Monday afternoon and walloping through the Valley’s southeast cities around 5 p.m. The beast quickly covered all of Queen Creek and Chandler before heading toward Phoenix. At Sky Harbor International Airport, flights were grounded and delayed. After it was gone, a smattering of toppled trees and broken branches lay in the storm’s wake.
One Waymo’s dash camera captured it all as the robotaxi cruised through the Valley. The video captured the haboob’s arrival in the Valley, whose hazy skies transformed from beige into the dark orange that indicates that the sun has practically been blocked out. One Reddit user hit the nail on the head, writing: “What in the Blade Runner 2049 is happening in Phoenix.” It’s just a part of life here, friend — and so are the Waymos.
As the Arizona Department of Transportation's meme kitty has astutely pointed out, it’s best not to drive in these types of storms. If you’re caught in one, you should pull over to the side of the road and turn off your headlights so other cars don’t use you as a beacon. But that wasn’t in the cards for a Waymo, which has no driver and therefore no human-based visibility concerns.
About 15 seconds into the time-lapse video, the Waymo stops at a downed tree and ably navigates around it. Some Reddit users found Waymos to be better drivers in such difficult circumstances than many humans, citing the Light Detection and Ranging technology the robotaxis use.
“LIDAR is a win for rain, snow, and dust,” wrote one user. “Particles are at different distances, and a LIDAR can see past them unless there's so much stuff that everything is obscured.”
If it ever gets that bad, hopefully Waymos know to pull over and wait out the storm.
