Rain and severe storms rolled across parts of the Phoenix metropolitan area Saturday afternoon, bringing brief relief from the summer heat along with gusty winds and scattered power outages across the Valley.
Dark clouds built up over the East Valley before spreading west, prompting the National Weather Service in Phoenix to monitor incoming activity for gusty winds.
As the storms swept through, utility crews worked to restore electricity to affected neighborhoods. Both Arizona Public Service and Salt River Project reported thousands of localized power outages across portions of Phoenix, Mesa, Tempe and surrounding East Valley communities as strong wind gusts affected equipment…