Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, the production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name
Speaker 2: is Robert Lamb.
Speaker 3: And I am Joe McCormick, and we're back with the
Speaker 3: fifth and final part in our series on dust. This
Speaker 3: has really been an epic saga, taking it to five
Speaker 3: full parts in the series. We usually say that if
Speaker 3: you you know, if you haven't heard the previous parts
Speaker 3: in the series, you should go back and listen to
Speaker 3: those first so you get the flow. But honestly, I
Speaker 3: think this series is a little bit less narrative in
Speaker 3: format than some of the other ones we've done, So
Speaker 3: if you start with this one, I don't think it
Speaker 3: makes a huge difference.
Speaker 2: I mean, don't get too cocky, don't do them in
Speaker 2: exact reverse order. I think that would be a little strange.
Speaker 2: But you know, maybe you don't have to be as
Speaker 2: careful about it, right.
Speaker 3: So, but a very brief review. In part one, we
Speaker 3: talked about how to define dust. We talked about pyroglyphic
Speaker 3: dust mites which live in our homes and our furniture
Speaker 3: and eating our sleft off skin flakes delicious. We talked
Speaker 3: about the relationship between atmospheric dust and climate. In Part two,
Speaker 3: we talked about dust bunnies inner and outer, including dust
Speaker 3: bunnies in space, and we talked about how historical attitudes
Speaker 3: toward dust had changed over time, changing ideas in hygiene
Speaker 3: and things like that affecting interior design in the nineteenth century.
Speaker 3: In Part three, we talked about the role of dust
Speaker 3: in urban Victorian London and in the novel Dracula, and
Speaker 3: we also talked about the Sororietys paradox also known as
Speaker 3: the paradox of the heap, using dust accumulation as an example.
Speaker 3: And in Part four we talked mostly about select examples
Speaker 3: of dust having interesting significance in myths, rituals, and beliefs
Speaker 3: about magic and alchemy. And now we're back for more.
Speaker 3: So I think in the final episode of this series
Speaker 3: we are going to focus primarily on dust storms.
Speaker 2: That's right into the dust storm.
Speaker 3: So we've talked about how one of the defining features
Speaker 3: of dust is its tendency to fly, the tendency of
Speaker 3: dust particles to be borne aloft on the wind and
Speaker 3: float in the air for long periods of time, and
Speaker 3: for very small particles, this can be true even when
Speaker 3: air currents are fairly gentle, you know, it doesn't take
Speaker 3: more than a like a you know, fan in the
Speaker 3: house or somebody walking by to send some dust flying. However,
Speaker 3: if conditions are right, when winds become stronger, even particles
Speaker 3: larger than the normal flying dust threshold can be picked
Speaker 3: up and carried in the air, and this can result
Speaker 3: in dust storms, also known sometimes as sandstorms, also known
Speaker 3: in some instances as a haboob, which is a term
Speaker 3: that comes from from Arabic and sort of refers to
Speaker 3: a particular type of dust storm. For some people, especially
Speaker 3: people in very arid climates, dust storms might just be
Speaker 3: a regular part of life, you know, a thing that
Speaker 3: you get used to, especially in certain seasons of the year.
Speaker 3: But if you're unfamiliar with them, or if you are
Speaker 3: experiencing a dust storm at the extremes of size and intensity,
Speaker 3: dust storms can be frightening, all inspiring natural events, turning
Speaker 3: up massive, surging clouds of dust and soil so powerful
Speaker 3: I've seen them described as land based tsunamis that once
Speaker 3: they envelop you can blot out the sun and cause
Speaker 3: a kind of midnight at noon. And to illustrate what
Speaker 3: a dust storm at the extreme of intensity and the
Speaker 3: surprise factor can be like. I just wanted to mention
Speaker 3: a couple of descriptions of and facts about a particular
Speaker 3: dust storm that hit the Great Planes of the United
Speaker 3: States on April fourteenth, nineteen thirty five. This is a
Speaker 3: day that came to be known as Black Sunday, named
Speaker 3: after the storm, and with historical perspective, this particular storm
Speaker 3: on April fourteenth came to be seen as part of
Speaker 3: a larger pattern of drought and dust storms in the
Speaker 3: prairies of the central United States that stretched throughout the
Speaker 3: nineteen thirties and is known as the dust Bowl. And
Speaker 3: dust storms were very frequent during the dust Bowl. But
Speaker 3: the US National Weather Service actually has a great information
Speaker 3: page on the Black Sunday storm which collects some quotes
Speaker 3: from eyewitnesses and contemporary news reports, and they are fascinating
Speaker 3: and harrowing. So this storm was very large. It swept
Speaker 3: across multiple states through the middle of the United States,
Speaker 3: but it seems that the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma
Speaker 3: got the worst of the effects. The storm in this
Speaker 3: region sort of began in mid afternoon around four PM
Speaker 3: and stretched on into the evening and according to the
Speaker 3: National Weather Service summary, in some places winds reached sixty
Speaker 3: miles per hour, and in certain parts of the storm
Speaker 3: it was as dark as night or even.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 3: I want to read a couple of these contemporary descriptions
Speaker 3: that have been collected here. One is from a newspaper
Speaker 3: called the Liberal News. This is from April nineteen thirty five.
Speaker 3: I believe this is the newspaper of a town in
Speaker 3: Kansas called Liberal. It's the name of the town. It says,
Speaker 3: a great black bank rolled in out of the northeast,
Speaker 3: and in a twinkling when it struck, Liberal plunged everything
Speaker 3: into inky blackness, worse than that on any midnight when
Speaker 3: there is at least some starlight and outlines of objects
Speaker 3: can be seen. When the storm struck, it was impossible
Speaker 3: to see one's hand before his face, even two inches away,
Speaker 3: and it was several minutes before any trace of daylight
Speaker 3: whatsoever returned. Then I got another passage. This is written
Speaker 3: by someone named Pauline Winkler Gray, writing a piece called
Speaker 3: the Black Sunday of April fourteenth, nineteen thirty five for
Speaker 3: the Kansas Historical Society. This author right, it was as
Speaker 3: though the sky was divided into two opposite worlds. On
Speaker 3: the south, there was blue sky, golden sunlight, and tranquility.
Speaker 3: On the north, there was a menacing curtain of boiling
Speaker 3: black dust that appeared to reach a thousand or more
Speaker 3: feet into the air. It had the appearance of a
Speaker 3: mammoth waterfall in reverse color as well as form. The
Speaker 3: apex of the cloud was plumed and curling, seething and
Speaker 3: tumbling over itself from north to south, and whipping trash, papers, sticks,
Speaker 3: and cardboard cartons before it. Even the birds were helpless
Speaker 3: in the turbulent onslaught and dipped and dived without the
Speaker 3: benefit of wings as the wind propelled them. As the
Speaker 3: wall of dust and sand struck our house, the sun
Speaker 3: was instantly blotted out completely. Gravel particles clattered against the
Speaker 3: windows and pounded down on the roof. The floor shook
Speaker 3: with the impact of the wind, and the rafters creaked threateningly.
Speaker 3: We stood in our living room in pitch blackness. We
Speaker 3: were stunned. Never had we been in such all enveloping
Speaker 3: blackness before, such impenetrable gloom.
Speaker 2: Oh wow.
Speaker 3: And another source I wanted to mention a couple of
Speaker 3: details from this is the book that I brought it
Speaker 3: brought up in Part one of the podcast series. It's
Speaker 3: a book called Dust to the Modern World in a
Speaker 3: Trillion Particles by Jay Owens, published twenty twenty three. This
Speaker 3: book has a chapter which talks about dust storms, drought,
Speaker 3: and the dust bowl, and the author here relates an
Speaker 3: eyewitness telling by a woman named Ada Kerns talking to
Speaker 3: the Oklahoma Historical Society about Black Sunday many years later,
Speaker 3: and she claims that she's listening to the radio and
Speaker 3: suddenly the radio announcer had to cut in and say
Speaker 3: we're going off the air, and gave no explanation why, so,
Speaker 3: Owens writes about this quote, no time to say why.
Speaker 3: The storm carried so much static electricity that it was
Speaker 3: shorting out electrical equipment and car engines. Barbed wire fence
Speaker 3: is visibly glowed with charge. The storm front rolled southward,
Speaker 3: picking up more dirt and power as it went. The
Speaker 3: sky filled with birds racing ahead, The ground ran with
Speaker 3: jack rabbits. The dust storm rolled along the horizon, inexorable
Speaker 3: and terrifying, a wall of oblivion.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: She also quotes multiple people who she kind.
Speaker 2: Of observes that there's like this.
Speaker 3: Trend of different people, all saying they had the same
Speaker 3: thought when they saw the dust storm approaching, which is
Speaker 3: that they thought the world was ending, or at least
Speaker 3: in an expressive way, said it was like the world
Speaker 3: was ending in fact, JJ, if you want to pull
Speaker 3: in a little bit of media. Apparently, Woody Guthrie has
Speaker 3: a song that was possibly inspired by this event. The
Speaker 3: song is known as Dusty Old Dust or so long
Speaker 3: It's been Good to know you and has some lyrics
Speaker 3: about dust storms that I'm gonna say, I love Woody Guthrie.
Speaker 3: This song, the vibes of it do not quite convey
Speaker 3: the terror and intensity of these quotes.
Speaker 2: Oh long it's been good denoy you? This dusty old
Speaker 2: Dust is a blowing me. Yeah. Yeah, I mean they're
Speaker 2: just looking at the lyrics of the song. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 2: there's talking about the sun being blocked out and people saying,
Speaker 2: so long it's been good to know yet. But yeah,
Speaker 2: maybe that's not completely conveyed in the overall tone of
Speaker 2: the song.
Speaker 3: It's a friendly sounding melody.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So again for some people around the world, people who
Speaker 3: live especially in desert regions or arid or semi arid
Speaker 3: regions where dust storms are common, it might not seem
Speaker 3: as all inspiring, maybe in the same way that if
Speaker 3: you'd never seen a regular, you know, a thunderstorm with
Speaker 3: lightning and rain before, if you saw that, it would
Speaker 3: seem truly terrifying and all inspiring. So I, you know,
Speaker 3: we get used to the large scale weather and natural
Speaker 3: phenomena that happen often in our surroundings. But if you
Speaker 3: are not used to the idea of a dust storm,
Speaker 3: as I certainly am not, it seems just an overwhelming experience.
Speaker 3: So Rob I did attach a few photos we can
Speaker 3: look at that managed to in various contexts capture the
Speaker 3: dust wall boundary like of an advancing dust storm, and
Speaker 3: it looks just shocking, you know. There's like it's like
Speaker 3: mountainous dark clouds just pouring over the land.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, I have relatives that live out in Arizona,
Speaker 2: and I've never been out there during a dust storm.
Speaker 2: I've been driving through Arizona or parts of New Mexico
Speaker 2: where they have the signs beware dust storm and even
Speaker 2: like instructions on what to do, namely like pull over
Speaker 2: that sort of thing. But I'd asked them about it,
Speaker 2: you know, I asked my relatives there and you know,
Speaker 2: what was it like and so forth, and ended up
Speaker 2: looking up. If you just do an image search for
Speaker 2: dust storms A Z, you'll get some pretty tremendous looking
Speaker 2: images and some footage as well. And yeah, there's just
Speaker 2: a very apocalyptic appearance to these things, just a massive
Speaker 2: wall of dust rolling in, you know, blotting out the sun,
Speaker 2: turning the world red or gray in the shadows. I'm
Speaker 2: glad I've not had the experience firsthand. I'm sure we
Speaker 2: have listeners out there who have been through these many times,
Speaker 2: and perhaps you can write in and share your experiences
Speaker 2: with us.
Speaker 3: Please do.
Speaker 2: Rob.
Speaker 3: I'm glad you mentioned the idea of pulling over if
Speaker 3: you're on the road and there's a dust storm, because
Speaker 3: it does seem based on what I've read, that one
Speaker 3: of the biggest hazards actually of a dust storm is
Speaker 3: not so much that the storm is going to harm
Speaker 3: you directly, but it's the reduction in visibility and the
Speaker 3: way that it can affect like machines and electronics. So
Speaker 3: you don't want to be trying to fly or drive
Speaker 3: in the middle of a dust storm that you can
Speaker 3: have collisions in an aircraft or ground based vehicle. It's
Speaker 3: just better to avoid it, obviously if you're flying, but
Speaker 3: if you're in a car stop, you know you don't
Speaker 3: want to be trying to weave your way through the
Speaker 3: darkness at noon.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I believe the general advice and do check your
Speaker 2: local signs. Just take my word for it here, but
Speaker 2: I believe you're supposed to, like, you know, turn off
Speaker 2: your engine, turn off your lights, put your vehicle in park,
Speaker 2: and so forth. So yeah, the signs are very clear
Speaker 2: about this in areas where dust storms are a possibility.
Speaker 3: However, this does raise interesting questions because I certainly look
Speaker 3: at a dust storm and think I've never seen anything
Speaker 3: like this firsthand. I would just be overwhelmed by it.
Speaker 3: But then I think, why is it that I've never
Speaker 3: seen anything like this firsthand? Why is it that they
Speaker 3: only occur in some regions and not in others. To
Speaker 3: some people, dust storms or a regular seasonal thing, you
Speaker 3: just get used to it. You prepare for it. You
Speaker 3: try to rely on weather prediction as far as that'll
Speaker 3: help you prepare for it. You know, you can put
Speaker 3: tarps over things, and you can take measures to try
Speaker 3: to avoid getting in trouble in a dust storm. But
Speaker 3: for lots of people around the world. It's just a
Speaker 3: regular part of life. So why don't we get major
Speaker 3: dust storms around where we live? It has to do
Speaker 3: with climate. So this is going to raise general questions
Speaker 3: about how do dust storms work, what actually causes them,
Speaker 3: and where do they form. So I was looking at
Speaker 3: a number of sources on this question, and a really
Speaker 3: good one I came across is what do you know?
Speaker 3: A good old house stuff Works article by Vicky Jugo,
Speaker 3: Rob and I. If you're newer to the show, never
Speaker 3: heard us talk about this before. Robin I used to
Speaker 3: work for How Stuff Works. Seeing still see the stuff
Speaker 3: and the title of the podcast there.
Speaker 2: Yep, yep, still have some bylines on that website.
Speaker 3: Well, anyway, I learned a lot of things about dust
Speaker 3: storms from this house Stuff Works article, so it's a
Speaker 3: pretty good one. So dust storms can occur anywhere where
Speaker 3: the conditions are right, but they are especially common in
Speaker 3: certain places around the world, places in arid regions of
Speaker 3: Central Africa, in Australia, in Central Asia, and arid parts
Speaker 3: of North America. And why is it in these locations
Speaker 3: in particular that dust storms are the most common. It's
Speaker 3: local climate conditions, as you might expect it. Dust storms
Speaker 3: are most like in places where the top soil is
Speaker 3: loose and dry, so places where the ground is wet
Speaker 3: or where the soil is firmly crusted together are going
Speaker 3: to release fewer particles into the air when the wind
Speaker 3: kicks up, so obviously less likely to create a dust storm.
Speaker 3: These conditions of dry, loose top soil are most common
Speaker 3: in arid regions, especially after a period of drought. In fact,
Speaker 3: water helps protect the soil from erosion in multiple ways.
Speaker 3: It directly physically helps bind the soil by getting it
Speaker 3: wet and making it compact, you know, helping it clump together.
Speaker 3: But it also nourishes plant life, and the plants in
Speaker 3: turn help protect against soil erosion in many ways. So
Speaker 3: plants help bind soil and hold it in place with
Speaker 3: their roots, but plants can also serve as wind breaks
Speaker 3: which slow down the wind that might blow away the
Speaker 3: top soil. Can also help prevent water from washing away
Speaker 3: soil when rain does fall, so dust storms are most
Speaker 3: common in deserts and semi arid lands. You can think
Speaker 3: of dryness and drought as triggering a kind of vicious
Speaker 3: cycle of loss of plant life and subsequent soil erosion,
Speaker 3: and soil erosion can give rise to dust storms. The
Speaker 3: process by which fertile and semi arid land is gradually
Speaker 3: degraded into full desert is known as desertification, and the
Speaker 3: house Stuffworks article here mentions one particularly notable case of
Speaker 3: relatively recent natural desertification. Because there's some desertification that's caused
Speaker 3: by human land use practices, certain types of agriculture and
Speaker 3: stuff like that, but there's also natural desertification, just as
Speaker 3: the climate of regions changes over time. And the natural
Speaker 3: example mentioned in this article is a place called the
Speaker 3: Badeleai Depression. So the Badeleai Depression is a sandy dry
Speaker 3: basin at the southern edge of the Sahara Desert, centered
Speaker 3: in the northern half of the country of Chad. Today
Speaker 3: it's a relatively low lying desert region, but about seven
Speaker 3: thousand years ago it was the location of a vast
Speaker 3: freshwater lake known to scientists as Lake mega Chad. Lake
Speaker 3: Megachad covered more than four hundred thousand square kilometers, which
Speaker 3: is larger than all of the Great Lakes of North
Speaker 3: America put together.
Speaker 2: That's a big lake.
Speaker 3: That's a Mega Chad.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: But as the climate of the Sahara region changed, the
Speaker 3: lake dried up and left behind the Baudela depression, and
Speaker 3: this region today is especially important as a source of
Speaker 3: atmospheric dust. A study by Elan Korn and others in
Speaker 3: two thousand and six found that during the winter, zero
Speaker 3: point seven tons of dust from this dry lake bed
Speaker 3: alone is blown up into the atmosphere every single day.
Speaker 3: So I got a little bit interested in this, and
Speaker 3: I found a paper by Washington at All published in
Speaker 3: Proceedings to the National Academy of Sciences in two thousand
Speaker 3: and nine called dust as a tipping element the Bdella
Speaker 3: depression chad and this paper suggested that the Badelea depression,
Speaker 3: this one single area is the source of about half
Speaker 3: of the mineral aerosols that come from the whole Sahara desert,
Speaker 3: and these mineral aerosols and dust from the Sahara more
Speaker 3: generally are very important for spreading supplemental mineral nutrients to
Speaker 3: the Amazon region. You may have read or seen about
Speaker 3: this before, that there's a cross oceanic current of dust
Speaker 3: through the atmosphere where this dust is lifted up off
Speaker 3: of the Sahara goes across the desert some goes into
Speaker 3: the Caribbean basin. I think some goes into the Amazon,
Speaker 3: and the nutrients that are in this dust are very
Speaker 3: important for sustaining the Amazon rainforest.
Speaker 2: Again kind of getting back into some of what we
Speaker 2: talked about earlier in the series about the connection between
Speaker 2: dust and weather and climate.
Speaker 3: Right, So, why so much dust coming off of this area. Well,
Speaker 3: apparently part of the reason is that there's sort of
Speaker 3: a wind gauntlet that feeds into it. I was reading
Speaker 3: a piece about this by the NASA Earth Observatory which
Speaker 3: writes that, quote, mountain ranges to the northeast of the
Speaker 3: depression create a natural wind tunnel that focuses and strengthens
Speaker 3: winds as they rake cross fast moving sand dunes. So
Speaker 3: sort of a funnel for wind here, the wind gauntlet.
Speaker 3: It hits this massive dry lake bed. And what does
Speaker 3: it pick up. Well, here's another fascinating thing to consider.
Speaker 3: The dust picked up from the depression here is made
Speaker 3: in large part of fossilized life. The sand in the
Speaker 3: former lake bed is made significantly of diatamite, also known
Speaker 3: as diatamaceous earth, which is a type of sedimentary rock
Speaker 3: usually soft in texture and light or white in color,
Speaker 3: and diatamite is formed over time from the fossilized body
Speaker 3: of diatoms, which are single celled organisms usually classified as
Speaker 3: the type of algae which live in the water and
Speaker 3: in the soil. They can sometimes gather together in colonies,
Speaker 3: and diatoms build protective cell walls or shells for themselves
Speaker 3: out of silica silicon dioxide, and after they die, the
Speaker 3: remains of these silica shells form a layer of sediment
Speaker 3: that can later become exposed and then become sand or dust.
Speaker 3: So the silicon dioxide shells of these tiny algae organisms
Speaker 3: living in the water so long ago become the dust
Speaker 3: that is blown across the ocean that helps nourish the
Speaker 3: Amazon rainforest, but also is used in everything from gardening
Speaker 3: to home construction to whatever I mean. Diatamacious earth is
Speaker 3: a commonly used material for all kinds of human industry,
Speaker 3: and it's just all the skeletons of these little dead
Speaker 3: life forms.
Speaker 2: Tiny process.
Speaker 3: But anyway back to dust storms. So dust storms often
Speaker 3: arise in these dry regions with less robust plant cover,
Speaker 3: especially after drought, when soil is vulnerable to wind erosion.
Speaker 3: When soil is very dry, it does not take a
Speaker 3: lot of force to lift dust particles into the air.
Speaker 3: According to the house Toff Works article, a wind of
Speaker 3: about nine miles per hour or fourteen point five kilometers
Speaker 3: per hour will kick up some dust. But of course,
Speaker 3: as winds become stronger, the uplift and transportation of dust
Speaker 3: and soil through the air becomes more violent. And one
Speaker 3: important process to understand here is something called saltation. The
Speaker 3: saltation as in related to Spanish word saltar, meaning like
Speaker 3: to jump. So when wind blows across loose, dry soil
Speaker 3: on the large scale, you will observe particles behaving differently
Speaker 3: based on their size. Very small dust particles can be
Speaker 3: picked up and become suspended in the air for long
Speaker 3: periods of time and can go very very high up.
Speaker 3: As we talked about in Part one, small particles of
Speaker 3: dust can float for hours or even days, and a
Speaker 3: dust storm can loft these small particles into a cloud,
Speaker 3: reaching hundreds of meters or thousands of feet into the air.
Speaker 3: Larger particles can be blown across the surface of the ground,
Speaker 3: sort of rolling in a process known as creeping, that's
Speaker 3: the term. But there are medium sized particles, these sort
Speaker 3: of sandy particles that engage in saltation, and saltation again
Speaker 3: means jumping. So these medium particles get blown along the
Speaker 3: surface of the ground until they are briefly carried aloft
Speaker 3: by lift. Maybe they hit an uneven surface and jump
Speaker 3: up as they're blown along, and then they bounce back
Speaker 3: down and hit the ground. And this causes a chain
Speaker 3: reaction because they come back down and they hit the ground,
Speaker 3: and that impact can cause other particles of soil or
Speaker 3: sand or whatever in the ground to bounce, to be
Speaker 3: knocked out of place, and they jump and then hit
Speaker 3: other particles and on and on, kind of like splashing
Speaker 3: in the water. So when a heavy wind hits dry soil,
Speaker 3: there will be a cloud of fine dust blown in
Speaker 3: the air by the air currents, but also a bombardment
Speaker 3: of leaping medium sized particles nearer to the ground.
Speaker 2: You know. This reminds me, of course, of a Frank
Speaker 2: Herbert's Dune, which I've been rereading. In the first part
Speaker 2: of the book, there's the scene where they take off
Speaker 2: in the ornithopter into the big sandstorm, and there's a
Speaker 2: discussion about, well, if you reach a certain altitude, it's
Speaker 2: going to be mostly dust as opposed to larger particles
Speaker 2: of sand at lower altitudes. In this, again not a
Speaker 2: terrestrial vision of a sandstorm or dust storm, but something
Speaker 2: occurring on a large, predominantly desert planet.
Speaker 3: Now I'm half recalling a detail. Does Dune mention something
Speaker 3: about the dust raised up when a sandworm is plowing
Speaker 3: through the desert having showing like electrical discharge.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I don't remember from previous readings, and
Speaker 2: I haven't gotten to the part yet where the sandworms
Speaker 2: start appearing in earnest, but it's certainly something that the
Speaker 2: David Lynch adaptation picked up, Yes, adding those sparks, and
Speaker 2: if so, I mean that would definitely be in line.
Speaker 3: That's right, because we mentioned earlier the static electric properties
Speaker 3: the static electric field generated in a dust storm, just
Speaker 3: based on direct observations, but there's been scientific study of
Speaker 3: this too, and it turns out that the friction created
Speaker 3: by a dust storm, including the saltation process here where
Speaker 3: these particles are hitting and rubbing against each other, creates
Speaker 3: a static electric field, which further aids in the uplift
Speaker 3: of dust and soil. Apparently, the ground becomes in simplified terms,
Speaker 3: the ground becomes positively charged and the flying dust particles
Speaker 3: become negatively charged, and this electric field helps lift more
Speaker 3: particles off the ground and helps the flying particles in
Speaker 3: the air lift even more particles up. So it's not
Speaker 3: just the force of the wind, it's the static electricity
Speaker 3: within the dust storm that helps make it even more
Speaker 3: violent and lift more matter off of the ground into it.
Speaker 2: I'll come into the quick note that in Dune there
Speaker 2: is mention of static electricity from sandstorms masking signals, messing
Speaker 2: with electrical equipment.
Speaker 3: Ah, there you go, Thanks for doing the research.
Speaker 2: This is the real time research of me consulting the novel. Here.
Speaker 3: One strange detail I read about for people during dust
Speaker 3: bowl times in the United States trying to counteract the
Speaker 3: static electricity within a dust storm was that they would
Speaker 3: put chains on the back of their cars. By the way,
Speaker 3: we're not advising driving inside a dust storm, you shouldn't
Speaker 3: do that, but chains on the back of the cars
Speaker 3: to ground into the car, so that so there'll be
Speaker 3: a connection to reduce the electrical potential.
Speaker 2: Fascinating.
Speaker 3: So dust storms can be created by really any source
Speaker 3: of strong winds. But a common source of strong winds
Speaker 3: here is in fact a thunderstorm, you know, like a
Speaker 3: like a cold front being pushed out in advance of
Speaker 3: a thunderstorm. And there's a real cruel irony contained there
Speaker 3: in the fact that like a dust storm very often
Speaker 3: happens in a dry place that is badly in need
Speaker 3: of water. And it is these dry conditions that make
Speaker 3: the soil so vulnerable to being loosened and eroded and
Speaker 3: lifted into the air. And then this dust blizzard is
Speaker 3: brought at the advance of a thunderstorm. So often after
Speaker 3: certain types of dust storms, like after a haboob, it
Speaker 3: will rain. Sometimes it won't be a lot of rain,
Speaker 3: but a rain can follow a dust storm. So it's
Speaker 3: like looks like rain is coming, but at the edge
Speaker 3: of the storm here comes a terrifying black wall of
Speaker 3: dust and sand miles long and thousands of feet high. However,
Speaker 3: to move on to a slightly different topic, Rob, I
Speaker 3: know you wanted to talk a bit about dust devils,
Speaker 3: and so we should establish a distinction between dust storms
Speaker 3: and dust devils. A dust storm is usually used to
Speaker 3: refer to like an advancing wall of dust driven by
Speaker 3: outflow of winds from a weather pattern or from a thunderstorm,
Speaker 3: while a dust devil is a smaller, more contained event,
Speaker 3: but can be very striking in its own right, because
Speaker 3: a dust devil is a type of whirlwind.
Speaker 2: That's right, smaller in scale, very much localized, and there
Speaker 2: are several good resources out there about this. I noticed
Speaker 2: that we both ran across one of the same explainer
Speaker 2: articles on weather dot gov, and this one is this
Speaker 2: is based out of Flagstaff. I think this particular article,
Speaker 2: but it is an NAA explainer and it points out that, yeah,
Speaker 2: dust devil is basically a short term dust filled vortex,
Speaker 2: ranging from ten to three hundred feet average height of
Speaker 2: five hundred to one thousand feet. They typically last only
Speaker 2: a few minutes, though it is noted that in desert
Speaker 2: environments like those of northern Arizona, they can reach heights
Speaker 2: of several thousand feet and last for an hour or more.
Speaker 2: Wind speeds can reach sixty miles per hour or so.
Speaker 2: You can think of them they're kind of like tornadoes,
Speaker 2: except they're smaller, often much smaller. They can still provide
Speaker 2: a certain amount of destruction. They can still impact things,
Speaker 2: but not generally to the degree that you would associate
Speaker 2: with a full scale tornado. I was reading more about
Speaker 2: them in an article from Rob mccorkyle, an article that
Speaker 2: this is on Texas parks in Wildlife. This is a
Speaker 2: twenty twelve article that's mostly dealing with legend, lore and
Speaker 2: legacy titled Ghostly Little Twisters. I'll come back to some
Speaker 2: of the tidbits that he includes here, but he also
Speaker 2: sums up some more about the formation of dust devils.
Speaker 2: The ideal conditions, he said, are a clear day with
Speaker 2: sunny skies, light or no wind, cool atmospheric temperature, and
Speaker 2: a flat bear in terrain and key. Here is a
Speaker 2: difference between near surface air temperature and atmosphere. So, as
Speaker 2: the NOAA article summarizes on this point quote, if the
Speaker 2: temperature of the ground becomes much warmer than the air
Speaker 2: above it, a vertical mixing will take place to release
Speaker 2: this unstable configuration. Once the ground heats up enough, a
Speaker 2: localized pocket of air will quickly rise through the cooler
Speaker 2: air above it. The sudden uprush of hot air causes
Speaker 2: the air to speed horizontally inward to the bottom of
Speaker 2: the newly forming vortex. So whila, you get this vortex
Speaker 2: of spinning dust. Because there's ample amounts of dust around
Speaker 2: in the sort of regions where these things tend to form. Again,
Speaker 2: these are generally not that long lasting, and they'll continue
Speaker 2: until this careful balance is broken. Generally speaking, that's once
Speaker 2: the warm, unstable air is depleted, and he points out
Speaker 2: there most of these are mostly considered harmless, but there
Speaker 2: are documented cases where they have caused harm. There's some
Speaker 2: story about one hitting a bounce house, for example, so
Speaker 2: they can get a little out of hand, but generally
Speaker 2: speaking are not considered like a major risk. They're generally
Speaker 2: seen as more of a curiosity.
Speaker 3: Is a bounce house? You mean that the same thing
Speaker 3: as like a bouncy castle?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, like a bouncy bouncy castle scenario. I don't
Speaker 2: know the full story on that that dead though NICs,
Speaker 2: but as one would imagine with any kind of phenomenon
Speaker 2: like this, it has factored into various folk tales and mythologies.
Speaker 2: And this is another area where there's probably much more
Speaker 2: than we can get into. But regions with dust storms
Speaker 2: and with dust devils, they have various supernatural ideas concerning
Speaker 2: such things. Already touched a little bit on Navajo traditions
Speaker 2: about different types of winds in the previous episode, but
Speaker 2: I found this this one interesting concerning dust devils potentially
Speaker 2: in Celtic mythology. According to the Encyclopedia of Celtic Mythology
Speaker 2: and Folklore by Patricia Monaghan. This is from twenty fourteen.
Speaker 2: Dust devils were connected to the idea of fairy blast
Speaker 2: or fairy wind, by which the fairy folk took things
Speaker 2: from our world. And you could dislodge something from the
Speaker 2: dust devil by throwing a shoe or some other object
Speaker 2: into it. But if you manage to take something out
Speaker 2: of it, if you knock something out of this dust
Speaker 2: devil that was not of human origin but was a
Speaker 2: fairy origin, a magical item of some sort, like a
Speaker 2: superb musical instrument of fairy craftmanship, well then you only
Speaker 2: have it for a short amount of time because it
Speaker 2: will later turn to dust in your hands.
Speaker 3: Oh, this reminds me of what we just talked about
Speaker 3: in the Listener Mail episode. The story from that seventeenth
Speaker 3: century sci fi novel The Man in the Moon about
Speaker 3: the guy goes to outer space and the devils there
Speaker 3: give him food, but he later goes to eat the
Speaker 3: food and it has turned into goat hair and uh,
Speaker 3: I think beast urine and some other thing goat poop also,
Speaker 3: so you don't want to you don't want to take
Speaker 3: items of value from those other worldly beings. It's it's
Speaker 3: just not going to stay what it is.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Now it is interesting though, because like Celtic tradition
Speaker 2: is not the first tradition I would think of when
Speaker 2: looking for dust devil traditions. Uh, but I just looked
Speaker 2: around and just a quick scan of various like news stories,
Speaker 2: I did run across one from not too long ago.
Speaker 2: Let's see if there's a having trouble finding a date
Speaker 2: on this, but just an AOL news story, rare dust
Speaker 2: devil whips up a storm on Irish beach. And there's
Speaker 2: some like, you know, some some local footage that somebody
Speaker 2: just snagged on the beach of one of these dust devils.
Speaker 2: So you don't have to have a desert environment necessarily
Speaker 2: for one of these things to form, and then you
Speaker 2: don't have to ultimately have that many of them or
Speaker 2: them have them occurring that frequently of course, to enter
Speaker 2: into folklore tradition. Now, Rob mccorkyle and that article Ghostly
Speaker 2: Little Twisters points out a few other traditions from around
Speaker 2: the world. Basically, there are various takes on the idea
Speaker 2: of a dust devil as a supernatural entity of one
Speaker 2: form or another, a ghost or a spirit, some evidence
Speaker 2: of the activity of the fairy folk, that sort of thing,
Speaker 2: and it may range from something rather harmless to something
Speaker 2: actively nefarious. So a few bits here he writes quote
Speaker 2: to the Navajo, dust devils are Chindy ghosts or spirits
Speaker 2: of the dead members of their tribe. Their tradition holds
Speaker 2: that a Chindy spinning counterclockwise is a bad spirit, while
Speaker 2: one spinning clockwise is a good spirit. He also adds
Speaker 2: quote in African folklore, a dust devil is a noom,
Speaker 2: a shape shifting demon or sorcerer, occupying the body of
Speaker 2: a human host and drawn to suffering and self destructive
Speaker 2: souls unconsciously seeking relief from the pain of their lives. This,
Speaker 2: of course, instantly brings to mind the Richard Stanley film
Speaker 2: Dust Devil, which is one we might have to come
Speaker 2: back around to on Weird House Cinema. It's been a
Speaker 2: while since I've seen it, but it has one very
Speaker 2: memorable dust related sequence in it.
Speaker 3: Oh I've never heard of that.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it's a weird one. Richard Stanley okay, and yeah,
Speaker 2: and I believe is tying into some actual I don't
Speaker 2: know to what degree they've been fictionalized and you know,
Speaker 2: made to fit the needs of a horror film, but
Speaker 2: I think there's some usage of traditional it's like South
Speaker 2: African traditions there. But anyway, that movie is not mentioned
Speaker 2: in the macorkyl article, but mccorkyl does mention that there
Speaker 2: are Middle Eastern connections between dust devils and demons or gin.
Speaker 2: And then also we see Aboriginal Australian traditions depicting the
Speaker 2: willy willy, a kind of nursery bogie that you would
Speaker 2: use to as with other bogies and boogeymen, to frighten children,
Speaker 2: essentially to tell them you need to behave otherwise or
Speaker 2: you be on the lookout because the willy willy in
Speaker 2: this case may come for you.
Speaker 3: You know, it's really not hard for me to see
Speaker 3: to look at various types of whirlwinds and imagine them
Speaker 3: as sentient beings because of the almost animal like wandering
Speaker 3: nature of their movements.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean the same is true of tornadoes as well,
Speaker 2: or at least the smaller scale ones. I mean, tornadoes
Speaker 2: especially in certain regions can become so large that they
Speaker 2: are more on the scale of like dust storms. But
Speaker 2: you know, whenever you have some sort of a weather
Speaker 2: phenomenon that you can sort of witness as a thing
Speaker 2: that is moving, you know, and as opposed to something
Speaker 2: you are in the midst of entirely we can't help
Speaker 2: but then anthropomorphize it and see it as kind of
Speaker 2: a being or an entity on some level, like even
Speaker 2: if you know better, you know, you can't help but
Speaker 2: think of that that tornado as like a stalking entity
Speaker 2: out there in the in the sky, you.
Speaker 3: Know, Rob after the series, I truly am not going
Speaker 3: to look at dust in the same way when I'm
Speaker 3: just you know, doing the everyday mundane chorts battling it
Speaker 3: inside my home. I feel like it has it has
Speaker 3: become potent.
Speaker 2: You know. One thing I forgot to mention we were
Speaker 2: talking about like observing dust in your home and also
Speaker 2: the interaction of small children. One thing I have noticed,
Speaker 2: of course is in the past is and okay, you
Speaker 2: have a dusty surface, you can ignore it a lot,
Speaker 2: a lot more easily if nobody has disturbed the dust.
Speaker 2: But once small hands have like played in the dust,
Speaker 2: and it's like, oh goodness, now I've got to dust
Speaker 2: this thing because the monotony is broken.
Speaker 3: Yep. If you make one clean spot, now you got
Speaker 3: to clean the whole thing.
Speaker 2: That's right. Oh, and real quick. On the subject of
Speaker 2: dust in dune and static charges and doing, there's a
Speaker 2: whole bunch of static electric in the novel Doom, And
Speaker 2: there's also mention of a static charge dust gun in
Speaker 2: the in the in the glossary at the end of
Speaker 2: the book that I'd forgotten about a Baradi pistol, a
Speaker 2: static charge dust gun developed on Aracus for laying down
Speaker 2: a large dye marker area on sand. So there's a
Speaker 2: lot of static electricity on the mind for Frank Herbert
Speaker 2: as he was writing this. Okay, all right, we're going
Speaker 2: to go ahead and close the book on dust. But
Speaker 2: that doesn't mean you can't write into us with your
Speaker 2: own tidbits experience learnings about dust, dust in your world,
Speaker 2: dust in different cultures, dust and literature and so forth.
Speaker 2: We're already getting some excellent listener mail on this count,
Speaker 2: and we will discuss these in future installments of Listener Mail,
Speaker 2: which publishes on Mondays. In This Stuff to Blow MND
Speaker 2: podcast feed our core science and culture episodes. Those are
Speaker 2: cround Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Wednesdays we do a short format,
Speaker 2: and on Fridays we set aside most series concerns to
Speaker 2: just talk about a weird film on Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
Speaker 3: your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.