A dust devil is a strong, well-formed, and relatively long-lived whirlwind, ranging from small (half a metre wide and a few metres tall) to large (more than 10 metres wide and more than 1000 metres tall). The primary vertical motion is upward. Dust devils are usually harmless, but can on rare occasions grow large enough to pose a threat to both people and property.
They are comparable to tornadoes in that both are a weather phenomenon of a vertically oriented rotating column of air. Most tornadoes are associated with a larger parent circulation, the mesocyclone on the back of a supercell thunderstorm. Dust devils form as a swirling updraft under sunny conditions during fair weather, rarely coming close to the intensity of a tornado.
Dust devils rarely cause injury to people on the ground; however, 1 case is reported every 5 to 10 years. The exception is for parachutist under canopy and light aircraft near the ground. If seen, parachutist and light aircraft avoid dust devils. They can collapse parachute canopies, and if near the ground, re-inflation, or using the reserve parachute is not possible.
Read more about Dust Devil: Names, Formation, Intensity and Duration, Electrical Activities, Martian Dust Devils, Related Phenomena
Famous quotes containing the words dust and/or devil:
“These, and such as these, must be our antiquities, for lack of human vestiges. The monuments of heroes and the temples of the gods which may once have stood on the banks of this river are now, at any rate, returned to dust and primitive soil. The murmur of unchronicled nations has died away along these shores, and once more Lowell and Manchester are on the trail of the Indian.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“In a Kelton church, when a heated argument once began at morning services, a devout old deacon arose from his seat in the ‘amen corner’ and announced he was going to do for the church what the devil had never done—leave it.”
—Administration in the State of Sout, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)