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NNSL Photo/Graphic

Force One service manager Greg Nutt (left) and Sheldon Pond scan the sky above them for any signs of tornados. - Mike W. Bryant/NNSL photo

'Tornado' touches down at Force One

Mike W. Bryant
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (July 09/04) - Staff at Force One aren't exactly sure what they saw roaring through their parking lot yesterday afternoon, but it sure looked a lot like a tornado to them.

Around 1 p.m. several employees at the boat and snowmobile shop on Old Airport Road witnessed a large vortical wind column enter the yard.

Although at times several hundred feet high, it did little damage other than tear the plastic coverings off some boats, and sucked debris up from a garbage bin in the middle of the yard.

"I have no idea whether it was a tornado or the biggest damn dust devil I've ever seen in my life," said Force One service manager, Greg Nutt.

"It came across the parking lot about 10 feet off the ground. It was blowing stuff around pretty well."

He said after ripping plastic coverings off a few boats and sending them flying high into the air, the "tornado" drifted out of the yard and headed towards Lakeview Cemetery.

"One of our employees was over at the Co-op and she could see the funnel and the dust blowing up from there," said Nutt.

"So it was pretty well defined and pretty high."

Mechanic Rodger Barabonoff said the funnel was about 10 metres across.

"All the debris it picked up, it took it as far as you can see in the sky," said Barabonoff.

"We were standing in the doorway and it was probably only 15 feet away from us. It really got our attention, that's for sure."

The supervisor of the Arctic Weather Centre in Edmonton, Paul Mondambault, however, doubts it could've been a tornado.

"The best guess we have right now is that it was as dust devil," said Mondambault.

He said unlike tornados, dust devils start at the ground level, not in convective storm fronts high above the ground, and are usually very short in duration.

They are caused by hot air rising from the ground that begins to rotate rapidly in the cooler air above. They can be up to 300 feet across, and up to 1,000 feet high.

Mondambault said the air temperature on the ground at the time of the "tornado" was 29C and very dry -- perfect conditions for a dust devil.

"The wind can be very strong, but nothing anywhere close to a tornado," said Mondambault.