Huge dust devil in Brandon, Man., due to warm, dry weather

Dry, sunny conditions are bringing out the dust devils in Manitoba.

A picture of what was described as a "massive" dust devil in Brandon was posted on FacebookFriday.

DavidBaggaley, ameteorologistwith Environment Canada, said the tiny twisters happen all the time in the spring and summer.

"A very dry air mass, like we have today Brandon is a fair bit sunnier than [Winnipeg], now basically just the afternoon sunshine heats up the ground a lot, it warms up the air just above it ... the warm, rising air has a little bit of spin to it, and it just tightens up into a dust devil," he said.

"You're probably looking at a bigger one today," he said.

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Baggaley said there areprobably thousands of the small ones a year, though they're usually not reported.

Manitoba's under a very dry air mass, Baggaley said, but Winnipeg is too cloudy for big devils to form.

Brandon isset to cloud over Sunday.

"Unfortunately, we're looking at a fairly rainy weekend, at least for tonight and most of Sunday, especially in the eastern part of Manitoba so not a lot of happy campers out there," he quipped.