Watch: Florida umpire snatches 7-year-old catcher from dust devil
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A partly sunny day at a youth baseball game in Jacksonville, Fla., turned scary in an instant for a boy who got caught in a dust devil. A video shows the dust devil suddenly forming around the 7-year-old catcher as a pitch was heading to home plate on Saturday. Within just a few seconds, an alert umpire pulled the boy out of the dust devil, which then zigzagged down the third-base line before disappearing about 15 seconds later.
Dust devils are not tornadoes even though they look similar. Tornadoes are spawned by thunderstorms, while dust devils typically form in sunny conditions when the ground temperature becomes much warmer than the air just above. The temperature difference can lead to rising and rotating air that creates a dust devil with an average width of about 10 feet to 300 feet and an average height of about 500 feet to 1,000 feet.
A similar scene unfolded when a dust devil developed during a softball game in Lynchburg, Va., on April 16, 2016. It’s not uncommon for dust devils to be seen on baseball or softball fields, as they tend to form in dry, dusty or sandy areas.
Most dust devils are relatively harmless and produce winds of only up to about 45 mph. But every once in a while a larger dust devil can produce dangerous winds of 60 mph or greater, such as the one that lofted chairs into the air at a softball game in Vulcan, Alberta, on May 5, 2018.
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Source: The Washington Post
