Mostly during the warm times of year, dust devils swirl in open areas on sunny days. The sun heats the ground, producing updrafts. Breezes can start spinning the air and you get dust devils, that basically look like little tornadoes on nice days.
Dust devils are almost always harmless, but the strongest ones can cause some damage. Sometimes you get some strange examples, like a couple of cool ones we'll highlight here.
In Elkhorn, West Virginia, a dust devil turned into a coal devil as it moved over a field of coal dust last week. I'm sure the air was just FINE to breathe inside this thing:
In the next video, taken more than a month ago, an unusually strong dust devil takes a palm tree for a spin in Phoenix, Arizona. If that tree was a person, that person sure would be dizzy after this. Watch:
The final video was taken in July, 2018 near Blythe, California by Chris Mackie. This is along the Colorado River during a major wildfire. These fires can creatre whirls or "fire devils," or whatefer you want to call them that can by much more intense than regular dust devils.
This Blythe, California one started as a big, strong rotation in the wildfire, strong enough to uproot and fling trees. Wildfires create their own weather, so when the whirl kept going out onto the water it became a sort of intense waterspout.
On rare occasions, an intense wildfire can create its own intense thunderstorm that can actually produce real tornadoes. This might have been one of those cases. Really amazing!
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