Walls of dust. Flash floods. Lightning-sparked wildfires. The Southwest monsoon is not your average summer storm and it's happening again..

The WeatherRadar is showing thunderstorms pop-up throughout the day across Great Basin, Southwest and into the central Rockies. Las Vegas, Salt Lake City and Denver could all be impacted by afternoon thunderstorms today.

The driver of these storms is a the Southwest monsoon. This summer weather pattern develops most summers throughout the Desert Southwest as moisture from the tropical Pacific and even the western Gulf streams northward. These feed waves of storms like the ones expected today and Thursday.

These storms provide beneficial rain to the arid Southwest while bringing a summer cool down. The TemperatureRadar shows highs only in the 90s in places like Las Vegas and Albuquerque. It was in the triple digits as recently as Monday.

They can produce dangers too, including flash flooding from the quick several inches of "gully washer" downpours these storms produce. Wildfires from lightning strikes and dust storms called haboobs produce by the high winds can also be a side effect of these storms.