I spent some time out around beautiful Gueydan today. As the day got hotter, I started seeing white columns rising from the horizon in every direction I looked. I thought they were hot fires making white smoke. Some were distant bright lines that I could have passed off as my imagination or as the beginning symptom of some kind of heat illness. Others seemed closer and were definitely real. As I moved from an area of green fields to one of plowed fields, the columns began to pop up in spirals right in front of me. They were what I called "dust devils" when I was a kid, little tornadoes of dust rising quickly over hot bare fields.
The dust devils started as puffs of smoke, and eventually built up like the smoke rising from a growing fire. A few then died down while others rose high into the air to form thin tight spirals, kind of like waterspouts but on dry, hot land. As I scanned the horizon I could see dozens at any given time, some near and some farther off.
Here's a brief clip of a short, shaky scan of the horizon. I hope it gives an idea of the scope of the setting. I also hope these fields got as much rain this afternoon as Lafayette did. They needed it.
1 comment:
Three years ago in July I drove to Pineville using Hwy 71. Somewhere around Bunkie I experienced the same dust devils depicted in your pics. I was surrounded by miles of dry plowed fields. There were a lot of funnels, and some were impressive (read scary). A small one cut right across the road as I passed, and it really gave my lightweight Prius a good shaking.
I grew up thinking that dust devils & water spouts were fascinating. Then that water spout crossed Grand Isle from the bay side, damaging the homes on the street a block and a half behind my house! My neighbors saw it and hid for their lives. A week after that I watched another very large water spout on Barataria Bay move along with a heavy rainstorm for over 15 minutes. From now on, I'll probably do less lookin' and more hiding...
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