On Friday, myself and a colleague were walking through the grounds of our horticultural centre discussing plans to increase and expand production for next year. It was very warm, sunny and still. We were standing about 50 yards away from a large patch of raspberries, when all of a sudden, about half a dozen dead leaves lifted into the air from the centre of the patch.

More and more leaves rose from the ground and slowly started circling to about 15 feet into the air. We were transfixed as we realised that we were witnessing the beginnings of a mini-whirlwind. Within seconds the spiralling column started to move uphill and passed right through us creating an exhillarating but very stiff breeze. It was the weirdest sensation and had I have been on my own, I'd have thought it to be dead spooky.

Dave Poole wrote in message
s.com...
On Friday, myself and a colleague were walking through the grounds of
our horticultural centre discussing plans to increase and expand
production for next year. It was very warm, sunny and still. We were
standing about 50 yards away from a large patch of raspberries, when
all of a sudden, about half a dozen dead leaves lifted into the air
from the centre of the patch.

More and more leaves rose from the ground and slowly started circling
to about 15 feet into the air. We were transfixed as we realised that
we were witnessing the beginnings of a mini-whirlwind. Within seconds
the spiralling column started to move uphill and passed right through
us creating an exhillarating but very stiff breeze. It was the
weirdest sensation and had I have been on my own, I'd have thought it
to be dead spooky.
--
Dave Poole

Lucky you! That sounds like the phenomenon known as a 'dust devil' - I'd
love to see one in lieu of an actual twister!
Liz

On Sat, 24 Apr 2004 23:41:39 +0100, "Bob Hobden"
wrote:

Lucky you! That sounds like the phenomenon known as a 'dust devil' - I'd
love to see one in lieu of an actual twister!

I don't think you would like to see a twister, well not up close and
personal.

Very true Bob, The last time I saw one - a decent one here, it was
perilously close, running across the bay and then ripping through the
town centre. On the outskirts it took off the roof of a couple of
buildings. I watched as it hit land and raced up the hill and was
awestruck by its power. By US standards it was a tiddler, but a
troublesome one nevertheless.

Dave Poole
Dave Poole
TORQUAY UK

The message
from Dave Poole contains these words:

On Sat, 24 Apr 2004 23:41:39 +0100, "Bob Hobden"
wrote:

Lucky you! That sounds like the phenomenon known as a 'dust
devil' - I'd
love to see one in lieu of an actual twister!

I don't think you would like to see a twister, well not up close and
personal.

Very true Bob, The last time I saw one - a decent one here, it was
perilously close, running across the bay and then ripping through the
town centre. On the outskirts it took off the roof of a couple of
buildings. I watched as it hit land and raced up the hill and was
awestruck by its power. By US standards it was a tiddler, but a
troublesome one nevertheless.

I saw one while up a hill with my son, who was a self-financing
student and forever thinking of new ways to make money. We watched the
twister forming miles away over the Clyde, and then travel cross country
towards us and our house on the moor below. There was absolutely no
cover to take. I was saying things like "Please let it not get any
closer" and D. was saying "If only I had my camera what a price I could
get for this picture".

My neighbour in a fold of the hills two miles away, out of our sight,
watched it cross her field and garden, spin back towards her house and
and pass over the gable end of her roof, where it sucked off most of the
slates :-(

Janet

"Liz" wrote in message

Lucky you! That sounds like the phenomenon known as a 'dust devil' - I'd
love to see one in lieu of an actual twister!

I don't think you would like to see a twister, well not up close and
personal.

We were driving the coast road in Cyprus once when we saw two big black
water spouts approaching the land. I stopped and could see them pick up
moored boats and toss them into the air, ripping them apart in the process.
When they hit the land and became twisters you would not believe the
devastation. One large restaurant had all it's furniture and fittings sucked
out of it's windows, bizarre to see all the smashed tables and chairs lying
around it in a circle, a banana plantation looked like a bulldozer had
driven straight through it to make a road.
Not nice, especially knowing you would have been right there if you hadn't
stopped.
--
Regards (p.s. wonder what happened to the photos)
Bob

Use a useful Screen Saver...
http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/
and find intelligent life amongst the stars

The message
from Janet Baraclough.. contains
these words:
The message
from Dave Poole contains these words:
On Sat, 24 Apr 2004 23:41:39 +0100, "Bob Hobden"
wrote:

Lucky you! That sounds like the phenomenon known as a 'dust
devil' - I'd
love to see one in lieu of an actual twister!

We seem to get a lot of them here in East Angular. I saw a beauty in the
stubbles - it picked up loose straw and you could see the conical shape
of it as it danced across the field.

I don't think you would like to see a twister, well not up close and
personal.

We see those from time to time. Usually they take the path of valleys
and do little damage, but a few years ago one ripped down one side of
Long Stratton village and removed most of the tiles for several hundred
yards. Wally wondered what the strange noise was and looked out of the
window of his café, to see his Merc slide by on its roof.

I saw one in the clouds last autumn, but I don't think the bottom of the
'tube' touched the ground, though it was groping downwards for about ten
minutes.

Very true Bob, The last time I saw one - a decent one here, it was
perilously close, running across the bay and then ripping through the
town centre. On the outskirts it took off the roof of a couple of
buildings. I watched as it hit land and raced up the hill and was
awestruck by its power. By US standards it was a tiddler, but a
troublesome one nevertheless.

The best whirlwind I've seen (not quite a tornado, but more than a dust
devil) was IIRC in 1957, when I was on the staff of Kingsdown Scout
Camp, near Deal. I was accompanying Peter West the Bailiff on his
inspection round when we were aware of a rushing, rustling sound, and a
cone of dead leaves, scraps of paper, straw, twigs etc bore down the
camping area.

It followed a slight cleft in the ground, in which was pitched the camp
of an approved school troop. There was a marquee, a couple of large
tents and a big dining shelter.

Under the shelter were trestle tables, benches etc, and breakfast was
laid out - plates, knives, forks, spoons, and egg-cups complete with
eggs. The troop was in the ablutions block a hundred yards away.

The whole encampment was lifted, still as if pitched on the ground:
tents, groundsheets, sleeping-bags, rucksacks, tables, benches,
everything. The lot rose about fifteen feet in the air like that, gently
turning on autoCAD, then it was all rolled up into a whirling, flapping
muddle, and it continued like that until the whirlwind hit the cliff
edge, and died, showering the entire camp down the face of it.

We couldn't help it. Laugh? I'll say. Keeping a straight face when the
boys and their Scouters came out of the ablutions and stopped dead in
their tracks was not easy. The poor fellows spent all morning salvaging
their belongings from the steeply sloping cliff.

No other camp was touched, and it was lucky we were on hand to report
the sight, or foul play might have been suspected...

I saw one while up a hill with my son, who was a self-financing
student and forever thinking of new ways to make money. We watched the
twister forming miles away over the Clyde, and then travel cross country
towards us and our house on the moor below. There was absolutely no
cover to take. I was saying things like "Please let it not get any
closer" and D. was saying "If only I had my camera what a price I could
get for this picture".

I realised too late that I had a camera with me when I saw the dust
devil in the stubbles.

--
Rusty
Open the creaking gate to make a horrid.squeak, then lower the foobar.
http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/