With just hours to go until Burning Man’s namesake event — igniting the wooden “man” effigy— a dust storm hit the Black Rock Desert in Nevada and threatened to derail the nine-day-long festival.
Around 4 p.m. on Saturday, Burning Man’s official handle tweeted that the playa, the affectionate nickname for the desert area where the festival takes place, was experiencing “whiteout conditions.” The account informed would-be travelers that the main gate had been closed and declared bluntly, “do not drive.”
The San Francisco Chronicle’s Matthias Gafni reported that gusts were measured at 35 mph during the wind event. The National Weather Service categorizes 35 mph winds as “near gale” force. (SFGATE and the San Francisco Chronicle are both owned by Hearst but operate independently of one another.)
National Weather Service meteorologist Amanda Young explained to the Chronicle that the wind event occurred when a cold front hit the area.
Visibility was virtually nonexistent on images taken from Burning Man’s official webcam.
Reports from the festival claimed that the dust was thick enough to block out the sun. Not that it stopped the burners from having a good time.
Intense weather events are nothing new for Burning Man. Daytime highs have been hitting triple-digits all week long, and an even more intense dust storm hit the festival in 2018, with winds topping out at 60 mph. Indeed, many burners might say the brutal conditions are part of the appeal. A thick coating of dust on one’s clothes and skin is seen as a rite of passage for new burners.
That being said, given the intense exposure and remoteness of the festival, powerful wind events have the potential to be extremely dangerous.
Tiktok user @johnnydiggz caught a massive dust storm on camera en route to the playa just last month.
Thankfully, for the tens of thousands assembled, the dust storm died down as the afternoon turned to evening, and the ritual burning of the man was able to go on without an issue.
A screengrab of the ritual burning of the man on Saturday in Nevada. The image was captured via Burning Man’s official livestream.
Motorbikematt / Webcast Team
FILE – Participants make their way through dust at Burning Man in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada on Sept. 2, 2015.
Andy Barron /The Reno Gazette-Journal via AP
