Have You Seen These Cloud-Colored Dust Devils in Oklahoma?

A storm tracker based out of Tulsa has captured some incredible forces of nature in Kingfisher County in Oklahoma over the weekend. Have you seen them?

Oklahoma Dust Devil Caught on Camera

Mark Scantlin was out near central Oklahoma when he filmed one of the cooler things that happen in the plains. While on the road, he was on the hunt for a dust devil.

"While driving through Kingfisher County, I noticed a patch of dirt spinners south of the highway and stopped to take a look," he captioned in the video. "The updraft above was pretty shallow, but the effect was obvious. This one looked different. It acted and moved differently. Very cool to see."

He wrote that witnessing a dust devil become a landspout is not common for him, saying that he has only ever seen it a handful of times.

What Is a Dust Devil?

Dust devils may look like tornadoes, but actually they're totally separate things. According to the National Weather Service, dust devils are "dust-filled vortices created by strong surface heating." They aren't as intense as tornados and generally happen in bright sunlight with light winds.

Something interesting about what Mark captured on video was the development of a landspout; dust devils are not considered tornados, but landspouts are. According to KOCO Meteorologist Michael Armstrong, dust devils aren't attached to a storm and are ground based, which excludes them from the tornado category.

"Dust devils are not tornadoes," he said. "But landspouts are considered tornadoes, even though they aren't as strong and don't do the damage we're used to seeing with tornadoes."

Should You Be Worried About a Dust Devil in Oklahoma?

Generally, dust devils in Oklahoma have winds that spin less than 50mph and aren't as destructive as what we're used to seeing with tornadoes. In some cases, they can cause minor damage to property, similar to an F1 tornado, but that doesn't appear to be a common thing in the sooner state, thank goodness.

@foxweather Check out that dust devil! It was spotted on March 6 in Oklahoma.🌪️ #dustdevil #oklahoma #caughtoncamera #oklahomacheck ♬ original sound - FOX Weather

For now, it appears that dust devils are a pretty harmless phenomenon that Oklahomans can actually enjoy instead of stress over - depending on which kind of Oklahoman you are, of course.

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