Other Phenomena

• Dust Devil - A dust devil is a rotating updraft, 1000 meters high or more and tens of meters in diameter. Dust devils are often observed in times of atmospheric turbulence, especially common in the San Luis Valley of Colorado. They are visible in the Great Basin and eastward to El Paso, for example. They are distinct from the common dust storms of this area, because they resemble small tornados. Due to this they are best viewed from a distance, and at a height (say, from a mountaintop). These whirlwinds are not extremely hazardous to biological organisms, but machines and electronics can suffer many severe malfunctions through repeated exposure to dust devil activity, including but not limited to physical damage or increased wear from dust and short circuits or other physical damage caused by electrical arcing.
• Fog - is cloud in contact with the ground. It occurs when moisture from the surface of the Earth evaporates; as this evaporated moisture moves upward, it cools and condenses into the familiar phenomenon of fog. Fog differs from clouds in that fog touches the surface of the Earth, while clouds do not. It can form in a number of ways, depending on how the cooling that caused the condensation occurred.