scott r currens
EF3
Lorena Guerrero and I had interesting impromptu chase to start the year while on vacation in the Andes of Argentina. We observed a couple of intense vortices in a mountain valley at 6,200ft. I say vortices because I am not entirely sure what to call them, overgrown dust devils or weak landspouts (non-mesocyclone tornadoes)?
We began the day traveling north out of Uspallata through the Valle de Uspallata in NW Mendoza Province. The base of the valley is 6000ft with peaks of 16-18,000ft peaks to the west and peaks of 9-14,000ft to the east. Our plan was take our time traveling to San Juan stopping at Inca ruins, an observatory, and other photogenic sites along the way.
By noon storms developed on the Tigre Mountains to the west. The storms were anchored to the mountains pulsating with occasional surges of outflow that reached our location in the valley floor. As the afternoon progressed we started seeing numerous dust devils off in the distance to the north that appeared to be on the old outflow boundary. The boundary was evident by the row of small towering cumulus oriented E-W across the valley. When we got close to the boundary were in the vicinity of several dust devils but none of the big ones were coming close to the road so we continued north towards a dry lake bed. As we approached the lakebed I could see what looked like a strong dust devil moving NE on an intercept course with our road. The vortex became rather intense for about 10-minutes with an impressive debris cloud. The vortex filled with dust that climbed approximately 2-3,000 feet to cloud base. We were directly under the towering cu so it was difficult to know what its vertical extent was. The vortex was visible for about 25-minutes nearly outlasting the cumulus it was attached to.
The second vortex occurred 90-minutes later at the Leoncito Astronomical Complex. The complex is on the west edge of the mountains on the east side of the valley in very rugged terrain. While we were taking pictures of telescopes perched on different hilltops a vortex formed between to hills a half-mile away from us. The vortex moved southwest behind a hill but remained visible as the vortex filled with dirt all the way to cloud base. This time the towering cumulus above was more substantial in both girth and vertical depth although it did not appear to produce any rain.
Video Link
Scott Currens
We began the day traveling north out of Uspallata through the Valle de Uspallata in NW Mendoza Province. The base of the valley is 6000ft with peaks of 16-18,000ft peaks to the west and peaks of 9-14,000ft to the east. Our plan was take our time traveling to San Juan stopping at Inca ruins, an observatory, and other photogenic sites along the way.
By noon storms developed on the Tigre Mountains to the west. The storms were anchored to the mountains pulsating with occasional surges of outflow that reached our location in the valley floor. As the afternoon progressed we started seeing numerous dust devils off in the distance to the north that appeared to be on the old outflow boundary. The boundary was evident by the row of small towering cumulus oriented E-W across the valley. When we got close to the boundary were in the vicinity of several dust devils but none of the big ones were coming close to the road so we continued north towards a dry lake bed. As we approached the lakebed I could see what looked like a strong dust devil moving NE on an intercept course with our road. The vortex became rather intense for about 10-minutes with an impressive debris cloud. The vortex filled with dust that climbed approximately 2-3,000 feet to cloud base. We were directly under the towering cu so it was difficult to know what its vertical extent was. The vortex was visible for about 25-minutes nearly outlasting the cumulus it was attached to.
The second vortex occurred 90-minutes later at the Leoncito Astronomical Complex. The complex is on the west edge of the mountains on the east side of the valley in very rugged terrain. While we were taking pictures of telescopes perched on different hilltops a vortex formed between to hills a half-mile away from us. The vortex moved southwest behind a hill but remained visible as the vortex filled with dirt all the way to cloud base. This time the towering cumulus above was more substantial in both girth and vertical depth although it did not appear to produce any rain.
Video Link
Scott Currens
