Photos: Blinding haboobs, flooding and power outages hit Phoenix, Las Vegas

Strong monsoonal thunderstorms caused disruptions around the Southwest Monday night as they unleashed flooding rain, blowing dust and wind gusts around 60 mph.

Towering clouds of dust could be seeing rolling across the region, including the Yuma, Arizona, area. AccuWeather Extreme Meteorologist Reed Timmer captured footage of the wall of dust steadily moving through the region.

The National Weather Service in Phoenix warned of limited visibility along the Interstate 8 corridor. Travel east of Yuma was discouraged for a time Monday night as visibility dropped below a quarter mile.

A new daily rainfall record was set on Monday in Phoenix. The city received 0.56 of an inch of rain, breaking the old record of 0.44 set in 1996. According to AZCentral.com, this was the first rainfall at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport in 119 days.

Flooding was reported around the Phoenix area and the Phoenix Fire Department said that it was responding to numerous weather-related emergencies.

Around 94,000 customers were without power around 8:30 p.m. local time Monday, AZCentral.com reported. The storms also knocked out power to a handful of traffic signals, which were still without power on Tuesday morning.

In the Las Vegas area, storms caused a number of flights to be diverted from McCarran International Airport and many departures to be held on the ground until the storms subsided. A wind gust of 78 mph was reported at the airport shortly before 10 p.m. local time Monday.

Numerous power outages were reported at intersections in Las Vegas and more than 42,000 customers lost power for a time.

One person had to be rescued from the swift floodwaters, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

AccuWeather meteorologists are calling for additional rounds of showers and thunderstorms in the Southwest through the rest of the week as the monsoon season kicks into high gear.

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