My park just got hit by a massive dust devil

My neighbor's carport was shredded to pieces, with a large chunk ending up on my roof. I was in my carport when it hit. It was a beautiful day, about ten degrees cooler than usual. Suddenly, the wind kicked, and things started flying. I was enjoying it until I heard the sound of metal being ripped off and saw a big piece go floating by.
Just as I got inside, the piece of the neighbor's carport crashed on the roof. Then it was over.

Are you OK?
Are the neighbors OK?

Hopefully the material damage is fairly minor, and can be repaired without undue inconvenience.

AI Overview [google]
Determining the precise number of dust devil deaths per decade worldwide is difficult due to varying reporting standards and inconsistencies in tracking these events
.
However, some relevant data on dust devil related fatalities is available:

US Data (2007-2017): A study found that there were 232 deaths from windblown dust events, which include both dust storms and smaller blowing dust events like dust devils, in the United States from 2007 to 2017. This represents an average of about 21 deaths per year. This number is much higher than reported by official databases alone.

Quote: Dieter

Are you OK?
Are the neighbors OK?

Hopefully the material damage is fairly minor, and can be repaired without undue inconvenience.
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I'm fine. Neighbors are snowbirds. I did a lap around the park on my bike and the damage is mostly branches and palm leaves. The house behind me seems to have taken the worst hit. The crazy thing is the sky is cloudless and it is a beautiful day. Usually, these things resemble mini-tornados, and you see the swirling dust. This seemed invisible. My insurance has a very high wind damage deductible so I'm hoping my neighbor's insurance will cover the cost of removing the debris. My ladder-climbing days are over.

Quote: billryan

Quote: Dieter

Are you OK?
Are the neighbors OK?

Hopefully the material damage is fairly minor, and can be repaired without undue inconvenience.
link to original post

I'm fine. Neighbors are snowbirds. I did a lap around the park on my bike and the damage is mostly branches and palm leaves. The house behind me seems to have taken the worst hit. The crazy thing is the sky is cloudless and it is a beautiful day. Usually, these things resemble mini-tornados, and you see the swirling dust. This seemed invisible. My insurance has a very high wind damage deductible so I'm hoping my neighbor's insurance will cover the cost of removing the debris. My ladder-climbing days are over.
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Ladders everywhere thank you and are breathing a sigh of relief..

What an odd coincidence! Exactly the time when you were posting this, I was deep in the desert near Cal-Nev-Ari with my metal detector, taking advantage of a sub-100 degree day to dig up bullets and bottlecaps, and my body was also hit by a dust devil.

(Clarification: by "my body" I mean my person, my corpus, my physical manifestation. I was not carrying any kind of remains.)

That was no fun! I can see how that would damage structures.

I got into one in a parking lot in Vegas. I've seen small ones before, but not one that big. First thing that occurred to me, was I underestimated how strong it was. Made me rethink my formally no-worries response to previous ones.

Quote: AutomaticMonkey

What an odd coincidence! Exactly the time when you were posting this, I was deep in the desert near Cal-Nev-Ari with my metal detector, taking advantage of a sub-100 degree day to dig up bullets and bottlecaps, and my body was also hit by a dust devil.

(Clarification: by "my body" I mean my person, my corpus, my physical manifestation. I was not carrying any kind of remains.)

That was no fun! I can see how that would damage structures.
link to original post

I have always wanted to get a detector, I may now that this reminds me.
What is it about bullets and bottle caps?

Quote: rainman

Quote: AutomaticMonkey

What an odd coincidence! Exactly the time when you were posting this, I was deep in the desert near Cal-Nev-Ari with my metal detector, taking advantage of a sub-100 degree day to dig up bullets and bottlecaps, and my body was also hit by a dust devil.

(Clarification: by "my body" I mean my person, my corpus, my physical manifestation. I was not carrying any kind of remains.)

That was no fun! I can see how that would damage structures.
link to original post

I have always wanted to get a detector, I may now that this reminds me.
What is it about bullets and bottle caps?
link to original post

It means you will dig up an awful lot of those for every good thing you find. But the good news is the further away from contemporary civilization you get, the less junk you encounter.

I had a dust devil appear way across the street from me in a truckers parking lot about 30 years ago. It was a sunny warm day around 1:30 pm and I think the sun just hit right and caused this but it sprang up in the street and towered over 300 feet tall and was building up speed to over 60-80 mph. But it was just not moving anywhere. It was going at a walking pace and I thought when it jumped the curb into the parking lot it would fall apart or that the change from asphalt to dirt would make it fall apart. It kept going for over 5 minutes. There were a few trucks in the parking lot but not the usual crowd. If one got hit it could cause an explosion or a wreckage. But this thing was maybe 15 to 20 feet in diameter on the ground and just went not very far at all and finally wisped away into nothingness without incident.