Stunning in form on its own, this supercell north of Kit Carson sported a vast field of mammatus across the underside of the downshear anvil, near to far. Meanwhile, a wall cloud under the right base, and arcus cloud under the left, could be seen clearly, despite all the intervening blowing dust. Displacement of dust, sand and soil by wind is called an eolian process in geology. This counts! Here, many tons of dust, lofted from nearby dry fields by intense inflow, went right up into the updraft (the dark, fuzzy columns at lower middle, which weren’t rotating). From there, some fell in rain or hail nearby, while the balance blew downwind in upper levels, potentially for hundreds of miles. In this way, and even without a Dust Bowl-level drought and windstorm episode, a great deal of High Plains dirt ends up in the Mississippi Valley and beyond.
3 WSW Firstview CO (8 Jun 24) Looking NW
38.81, -102.5923