Because I spent my childhood on the hardscrabble streets of the East Coast, the only time I ever saw a tiny cloud of dust spinning rapidly was when the Tasmanian Devil appeared on my television. So you can imagine the confusion I felt when in Texas I first saw that same phenomenon. Where is the hairy beast that growls in unintelligible noises?
A recent Reddit post by redditor @ryanimal1 brought me back to that first dust devil. A video shows a cloud of dust moving quickly across a Midland work site attended by the redditor’s husband. “Comin’ to get us!” screams someone in the video, before the director closes a door to ensure they’re not in the line of the dust devil.
For those, like old me, uninitiated as to what a dust devil is and how it happens, here’s an explainer.
What’s a dust devil?
A dust devil is “a common wind phenomenon that occurs throughout much of the world,” writes the National Weather Service. They form typically when skies are clear, winds are light and temperatures are warm…