Dust Devils

[Mercedes Benzene]

Today at cross country practice, we were warming up on the track, when literally, 100 m away, a giant funnel of swirling dust erupted from the ground just outside of our stadium.

A few people screamed and basically brought our practice to a halt for a few minutes.

This was very strange to me, because it's the second time that it's happened in a month. Up until these 2 instances, I have never whitnessed a dust devil in my life.

Today's was about 50 feet tall, with a pretty solid looking "funnel" about 2 feet wide, with sparse dirt swirling out about another 5 feet or so.

 

So, I ask you:

What exactly is a dust devil, and what causes them?

Why would I have so suddenly whitnessed 2 in the past month, when I haven't seen one in the other 17 years of my life?

Have you whitnessed one? What was it like?

[Hill]

Today at cross country practice, we were warming up on the track, when literally, 100 m away, a giant funnel of swirling dust erupted from the ground just outside of our stadium.

A few people screamed and basically brought our practice to a halt for a few minutes.

This was very strange to me, because it's the second time that it's happened in a month. Up until these 2 instances, I have never witnessed a dust devil in my life.

Today's was about 50 feet tall, with a pretty solid looking "funnel" about 2 feet wide, with sparse dirt swirling out about another 5 feet or so.

 

So, I ask you:

What exactly is a dust devil, and what causes them?

Why would I have so suddenly witnessed 2 in the past month, when I haven't seen one in the other 17 years of my life?

Have you whitnessed one? What was it like?

 

Dust devil - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia can explain it as well as I can. You get more thermal activity the warmer it is so you must be experiencing hot weather right now. And you won't see them if the ground is moist because it is dust lifted into the air that makes them visible. You may also be seeing a lesser phenomenon if it is just windy. Wind moving by obstacles may create a vortex, like when it flows by the corner of a building. Those that occur in the fall tend to be more visible because of more litter in the form of fallen leaves etc. is more available. These wind vortexes don't require much if any local thermal activity.

 

 

YouTube - Japan Dust Devil http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOITKe-H6HE

 

 

Now that's a dust devil.

[Cedars]

We used to try to get hit by them (the smaller ones). The large ones intimidated us as kids. Often the distance was too much to cover as the Dust Devil swirled through the field.

 

Sometimes the temperature drop was 20 degrees or so. You would be in warm air swirling then it would pick up cold air that gave you goose bumps.

 

The ones that formed over grassy pastures would cause the cattle impacted to run. We often didnt see them until the cattle reacted, then we would notice a few grasses and leaves marking the dust devil. The cattle reacted much like the giraffe below:

 

YouTube - Dust Devil http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5teeC950Sw

 

Hill's embed reminded me of one in the yard here that picked up the kids wading pool, swirled it around in like slow motion, across the road it went and into the woods. The kids Laughed and Laughed.

[Mercedes Benzene]

That's so interesting! Thanks for sharing those videos.

I'm so fascinated by these things now.... and it's interesting that I've never witnessed them until now.