"Martin Rowley" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 01 Aug 2012 22:42:30 +0100, Metman2012 wrote:

A friend of mine experienced a very strong dust devil (or something
similar). It was on Wednesday 25th of July at about 2.0pm. It happened
in a field near the A 27 near to The Longman at what used to be
Longman's Nurseries about three miles outside Eastbourne.
The sky was clear blue. Two big plastic tubs were taken right across
the
field and rubbish swirled around high in the sky. rest snipped

... witnessed one of these back in the early 1980s in Finningley village
(I was stationed at RAF Finningley & we lived in the village); my wife and
I were helping out at the local village fête and it was a fine day with
shallow Cu hum - plenty of blue sky, a gentle (F3,ocnl F4) wind from WSW
(in which direction lay the aforementioned airfield - a vast expanse of
short-mown grass and lots of concrete/tarmac).

The field being used for the fête was directly downwind of the airfield
with little or no physical barrier to anything coming along from that
direction (the hedges were either non-existent or kept cut deliberately
low to aid security).

We had just got the stalls set up, covered, laid out etc., when I became
aware of a swirl of dust approaching from the airfield - it crossed
directly over the fête area - several tables completely over-turned, many
others having contents thrown aside and causing no little angst!
Fortunately, within 90 seconds, it had gone, we all dusted ourselves down
and re-set the stalls. I should think that the wind achieved at least F7
for a short time.

Strong surface heating - steep lapse rate in the lowest tens of feet - and
neutral stability above (or the energy tends to get dispersed vertically
without causing other than a 'normal' gust).

I think I wrote it up in a 'Weather' at the time, but can't remember now -
and they've all gone unfortunately.

Martin.


"Weather" is available online at Met Office website. However, I think you
may have to subscribe.
MetO employees can get all the science literature online. One can always pop
into the MetO library physically though, bit difficult, however, if you live
a long way away from the near centre of the universe :-)
Martin I was at Finningley 1970-1971.

Will
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