“And so the hours dragged by until the sun stood dead above our heads, a huge white ball in the noon sky, beating, blazing down, and then it happened—suddenly, a whirlwind! Twisting a great dust storm up from the earth, a black plague of the heavens filling the plain, ripping the leaves off every tree in sight, choking the air and sky. We squinted hard and took our whipping from the gods.”
~ Sophocles, ‘Antigone’, 450 BC
We are surrounded by a sea of air and tend to notice atmospheric anomalies great and small. If the ground is flat and hot and the air cooler aloft, an updraft occurs which is often imparted a spin. These dust (or dirt) devils occur around the world and bring amazement to those lucky enough to experience them. They also have been seen on Mars where I hope my Martian counterpart is writing his/her own story.
These are not the terrifying cyclones of film that threaten to whisk you and your little dog to Oz, nor are they the ocean-sized storms so powerful that they create their own tides and are given names. Rather, these busy little twisters appear suddenly on clear, hot days and are capable of wreaking havoc on lawn chairs and beach balls.
Heat brings pressure and with pressure, movement. And like a twirling skater bringing her arms in to maintain constant angular momentum, so the whirlwind spins across the land, announcing the physics of the air and asking for balance in all things.
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