Tornado video takes social media by storm

Manama

A circular movement of wind similar to a tornado hit Kingdom yesterday, according to social media users. As soon as the video of the ‘tornado’ appeared on the Facebook account of Defend Bahrain, it went viral and social media users chipped in with their comments.

The video showed the spiralling movement of the wind along with dark dust on a busy road in Bahrain. Motorists were seen fazed at the unexpected scene on the road.

Meanwhile, there were different opinions by the netizens regarding the video clips. Sukaina Shagufta Naseer posted on Facebook: “It can be heat and air rising. When under earth there is too much heat sometimes it turns our same like tornado. I’ve seen it in windy deserts of KSA also.” She then added: “Allah provide us from any disaster.” Chad M Smith commented: “We have these very often in the western United States, we call them ‘dust devils.’ Same principle as a tornado, just much smaller. Heat rapidly rising causes the air to begin spinning and lifting the dirt into the air.

When I was a child, we would run through them in the school yard.” Jana Camp Herrera’s Facebook post said, “Lol. That’s not a tornado. It’s a dust devil. It comes from the ground, not the clouds & not nearly as destructive.” Interestingly, one of the social media users queries: “Is this Iran’s fault too?” Some claimed that it occurred in Hamad Town. Usually, a tornado is a violently rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or sometimes, the base of a cumulus cloud. There is no official confirmation regarding the news.