On our way back home from K-stan today, Damsel photographed this very large dust devil as we passed through the Arizona Outback. Conditions were nominally conducive for dust devils to form, with the 102 ° temperatures and ten to twenty knots of wind with gusts to 35. These guys do little damage, but can disrupt your daily activities by repositioning the trash bins and anything else not tied down. We’re learning to cope with these mini-tornadoes. Click on the image to enlarge.
Those are lots’a fun. Miniature storms that you can stand in, they have an eye of still air, and wind blowing around you in an eyewall. If it’s the right size, you can stand in still air and reach out and touch wind blowing in opposite directions.
I wouldn’t have tried that with this one; it was about 50 feet across and looked like there would have been more stuff than dust blowing around in it.
Heh! Believe it or not, Cap’n, dust was probably the only airborne material in it!