Is it a bird? no. Is it a plane? no. Is it a TWISTER? yeeaah!

[jetrim]

Out on US-27 today and caught this "dust devil" in one of the recently burned sugar cane fields...

[GB1]

Big dirt devil .. Almost a full twister!

[WesternGuy]

Neat! Any idea what creates these things in what looks like a rather benign set of weather conditions, judging from the fair weather cumulus in the sky?

Regards,

WesternGuy

[hminx]

I think you might find its thermal activity caused buy a bubble of warmed air leaving the ground, this will rise until it forms one of those cumulus clouds you can see. This is one of the bigger ones, probably made more visible by the soot from the cane field.

[jetrim]

Yeah, this thing was probably 30' across and a couple hundred feet high (a shame there was nothing around to really give it any scale). Saw it while driving and got 4 or 5 frames through the truck window, but by the time I pulled to the side it had dissipated. Pete is right about the cause, the intense heat of the burning field mixing with the cold air mass above it. Winds were light, maybe 10mph out of the NW (shot was taken pointing directly East) with no frontal activity.