Dust Devil Intercept

I pushed past the boundary of the lawn and trekked down the concrete sidewalk to an open patch of dry dirt near a street corner. A sudden swirling thermal shear developed over the baked ground, whipping fine silt and two dried seed pods into a tight vertical circulation. I widened my stance, planted my flip-flops firmly into the curb seam to counteract the ground drag, and hoisted my video camera directly into the rotating inflow boundary. The miniature vortex spun intensely for five seconds before collapsing against the concrete lip, spraying a grit pattern across my knees.