cieldumort
(Moderator)
Sat Jun 09 2007 05:26 AM
Re: Very large whirlwind/dust devil....

Speaking of which - and this may be of particular interest to those of you in Florida who witness any future -especially tall- dust devils.. While living in Arizona I witnessed at least one occasion of a true dust devil to landspout transition.

This started out as a bona fide dust devil, although a particularly powerful one which reached higher and higher into the sky, and finally happened a meet-up with a towering cumulus not perfectly overhead, but which eventually drifted just about directly overhead. Anyone who has chased tornadoes before observing this -after- the transition would have assumed it was a classic landspout. Someone else observing this from the start, but not from the excellent vantage point I had, may have easily mistaken it for nothing more than a dust devil. I had the benefit of being up on a hill looking down at the base of the dust devil from not terribly far away., and with little or no obstructions from surface to cloud base.

It was a fantastic occurrence. Truly rare. F0, by the way. Made the evening news.



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