As pockets of warm air rise and interfere with one another, they create horizontal pressure variations that, combined with other meteorological winds, cause the upward moving air to spin. As the spinning column of air moves across the surface, it occasionally encounters dust on the surface, which it can suck upward. This dust rises into the spinning air, giving the appearance of a tornado-like column that moves across the landscape. Dust-devils rarely last long, since their very motion changes the conditions that allowed them to form in the first place. Arrows indicate two dark lineations, each about 2-3 pixels wide.
North is approximately up, illumination is from the lower right.