These folks were minding their own business, enjoying a perfectly nice game of softball when the weather swooped in to ruin everything — just like it always does.
A dust devil came in like a wrecking ball, tossing chairs and flinging dirt into eyes. Play was stopped, of course, because metal chairs had turned into lethal projectiles. It’s a miracle no one was hurt.
This dust devil in Vulcan, Alberta, on Saturday is among the strongest we’ve seen. They aren’t tornadoes because they don’t come from a storm. They spin up on very hot days when the air temperature near the ground heats up faster than the air a few dozen feet above the ground, which creates an instability. The dust devil, a tiny little low pressure system, forms as a result.
This one probably had wind speeds of 60 mph or higher. Cheers to the guy who hunkered down in his chair and rode it out.