Dancing Devils, Whirling Winds:Southern New Mexico Travel and Tourism Information

Dust Devil. Photo courtesy Wind Erosion Research Unit Kansas State University.

In one of Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories, "How The Camel Got His Hump," the horse, the dog, and the ox convene a palaver soon after everyone begins to complain about the "scruciating idleness" of the camel. They consult the Djinni In Charge Of All Deserts, who whooshes in wrapped in a whirling cloak of dust. After the three explain their anger at the lazy camel, who will only say "Humph!", the Djinni whirls away across the sands to work his magic on the recalcitrant beast. (In Arab legend, a djinni is a magical being that often takes the form of a dust devil, or a whirlwind.)

Dust devils certainly seem like magic, springing up suddenly from the hot ground, taking pale form from the soil they carry, and dancing whichever way they will. Creatures of warm climates and dry country, dust devils are children of the sun.

They form most often in spring and summer when the sun beats full strength on the soil, heating the ground surface as much as 80 degrees hotter than the air. Like a hot plate or an electric stove, the soil surface radiates energy into the air that it touches, heating a thin layer near the ground. Soon a bubble of this extremely hot and now less dense air floats upward. More hot surface air rushes in to take its place, developing a thermal, or rising stream of hot air, habitat for soaring hawks, vultures, and glider pilots.

But a thermal remains just that until an eddy, or area of turbulence, in the air gives it a whirl. Once spinning, it sucks in more hot air and whirls faster. The spinning column remains invisible until it vacuums up surface detritus: dry soil, tumbleweeds, trash, or even, if its winds grow strong enough, a kangaroo rat or two. Thus is born a dust devil, a desert dancer.

Dust devils usually grow no larger than 20 feet across and 100 feet tall. Borne on 20- to 0-mile-per-hour-winds, they whirl only for a few minutes before running out of hot air. However, the sizzling summer temperatures of the West's hottest, lowest elevation places like Death Valley, California, or the desert around Phoenix, Arizona, sometimes spawn giant dust devils that tower a half-mile high and pack winds whirling as fast as 90 miles per hour, capable of tearing off roofs and collapsing walls.

Nevada's Gosiute Indians believed that they were born of the wind-swirled dust, and that whirlwinds embodied their ancestors' spirits. After riding through a whirlwind on my bike the other day, and arriving home wind-tossed and plastered with grit, I'm inclined to believe those who ascribe dust devils to Old Man Coyote, who, it is said, stirs them up for mischief. I could swear I heard Coyote laughing when that whirlwind hit me.