Dust Devils

The Mars Orbiter caught a nice shot of a dust devil in action. I wonder what speeds they achieve--pretty fast, I'd guess, since the air density is low.

I remember on the playground in California there'd sometimes be great whirls of wind, and we'd try to dash into them before they dissipated. We were pretty sure they weren't tornadoes, though we called them that out loud, and we'd have been terribly disappointed to learn they weren't even dust devils; just vortices from the wind whipping around the buildings.

I gather that even dust devils can be destructive and even dangerous sometimes.

I think I'll pass. If I can. Last Friday I got about a 15minute late start, and took the wrong turn in Rockford (something I've never done before) to blow another 15 minutes, and went for a leisurely lunch instead of a McD's fly in and out. So we were stuck in traffic north of Henryville for two hours instead of being a part of the event. Glad to be late.