The driest and hottest days of summer are ideal conditions for the formation of dust eddies on the ground. These eddies of dust are known by the name of hopper. They are also known as dust devils since they reach a considerable height and are capable of generating significant gusts of wind.
In this article we are going to tell you everything you need to know about the dustbin, how it is formed and what consequences it has.
Key features
On summer days the areas become more arid due to the scarcity of vegetation. To this we add a reduction in ambient humidity and it becomes favorable conditions for the formation of dust eddies on the ground. These eddies can generate significant gusts of wind that can cause various damages. The dustbin is nothing more than the wind vortex that resembles the appearance of a tornado and that receives other names such as revolvín, wind campfire, among others.
It is an updraft of air that has a rotation of a variable size. Most of the time the hopper are small in size and of short duration. It is usually barely half a meter in diameter and only a few meters high. The duration is usually about a few minutes. However, there are times when it can get really big and intense. Sometimes it can rise to 1.000 meters in height and generate winds around it of up to 100 kilometers per hour. Eddies lasting up to 20 min have sometimes been detected.
Formation of the hopper
These dust eddies form when hot air is close to the surface. Said air, being hotter, is less dense and tends to rise quickly. Once it reaches higher heights it finds colder air tasting above. If the environmental conditions are suitable, the updraft begins to rotate by the so-called Coriolis effect. The Coriolis effect is due to the Earth's own rotation. Since the rising air rises suddenly, the air column begins to stretch vertically and causes an intense rotational effect by the physical principle of conservation of angular momentum.
You could say that a chute is like a chimney through which hot air travels as many and upwards as in the direction of rotation inside it. As the hot air rises it loses its buoyancy and stops rising. In this way, it begins its descent from the outside of the core of the eddy. The descent of the colder air begins to balance the warm air that was rotating upward from the outside. In this way, you have the system completely stable.
It could be said that the dumpster can be maintained by itself as it evolves on the ground that is strongly overheated. Normally it tends to develop in barren, desert or asphalt terrain. These types of soils share the common characteristic of being able to heat up more easily due to the action of incident solar radiation. As the extremely warm air that is next to it is analyzed in the highest part of the funnel, the cooler air from the surroundings ends up being sucked in. When this suction takes place, the hopper dissipates in a matter of seconds. Most commonly this happens when the scrolling is not fast enough to maintain speed. It can also happen that the hopper disappears when it crosses an area of land where the temperatures at ground level are lower.
The driving force behind the chute is the high ground temperature to allow the hot air stream to rise.
Chute damage
We are now going to see the possible damages that the dustbin can cause both by its action and by its exposure. Exposure to dustbin dust can cause various health conditions such as allergies, the effect on the immune system, negative effects on the skin, eyes and mucosa. Due to exposure to this phenomenon, some effects may occur such as shortness of breath, tonsillitis, pharyngitis, bronchitis, pneumonia, asthma, heart conditions, diarrhea and some more.
In areas where the tolvanera is very frequent, absenteeism problems occur at school and work and an increase in spending on health and hospitalizations. An example of this is the western area located at the foot of the Maribios mountain range. It is one of the most polluted areas in the country that has been subjected to a process of deforestation for more than 50 years. As expected, this continuous process of deforestation has created inhospitable areas with more arid terrain that are conducive to the formation of this meteorological phenomenon. In addition, we must add the fact that these areas have been subjected to a continuous bombardment of toxic substances among which we find pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers. All these chemicals cause serious damage to the fertility of the soil and turn the most fertile places into arid places.
As we have seen at the beginning of the article, are these places the propitious for the generation of the dustbin. The dust that emerges from the most arid soils is the one that carries residues of toxic substances that are harmful to health. The same occurs with bacteria and viruses, pollen, spores, plant pieces and insects that particularly affect children, pregnant women and the elderly. Therefore, the hopper generates a powder that must be taken for health.
The side effects caused by the dump have to be taken into account. In just one year, more than 3000 affected people were reported in the Pacific and north central region of the country.
I hope that with this information you can learn more about what the dustbin is and what its effects are.