Bet you've never seen a tumbleweed tornado before!

While driving northbound on WA-240 past Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state, I noticed a few scattered tumbleweeds bouncing along the road. Moments later it was a bunch grouped together and I needed to slow down a bit. Then I looked about a hundred yards down the road and saw a tumbleweed devil forming quickly—so I pulled over to be safe. Turned out it headed directly into Bessie my 85’ VW Vanagon that I’ve been using on travel assignments to isolate on overnight reporting trips during the pandemic. She appears to be fine with some minor scratches and a whole lot of tumbleweeds that I needed to clear from the undercarriage. The most nerve wracking part was actual driving out of the pile that had surround me.

Credit: Matt M. McKnight/Crosscut.com (Twitter) @mattmillsphoto / @crosscut