A sandstorm, as witnessed from my back balcony

It's not really like you see in the movies, with huge walls of sand blowing around and mummies rising from the dead and so on. It's more like fog with a bit of grit to it.

An airborne desert between me and downtown.

Walking to work through this stuff, my main observation is that there is no discernible sand in the air. It's not as though I could just stick my hand out and gather up some grains to, say, make an hourglass with. But it does make you cough a little. There is basically no wind, and visibility is about one block; for reference, in that photo there are 50-story buildings maybe a kilometer away. This can't be good for the paint job on a Lamborghini.