'Dust Devils' Are An Actual Thing In Ontario & They're Like Mini Tornadoes (VIDEOS)

Ontario gets pretty much every weather extreme, but it seems you can add something else to the list. As it gets much hotter in the province, in drier areas with lots of land, so-called "dust devils" can sprout up and they're pretty damn powerful to watch. Dust devils in Ontario have been seen recently and they totally look like mini-tornadoes.

If you don't know what "dust devils" are, they're a short-lived whirlwind of air that catches dust and debris and whips it up into a visible flurry similar to a tornado.

They're not as destructive and much smaller than tornadoes. Dust devils are usually about 10 to 50 feet wide and won't necessarily extend more than 100 feet in the air, according to Weather Street.

That still sounds pretty impressive, to us.

And recent footage which captured the phenomenon happening in both Quebec and Ontario is definitely worth watching.

According to Mark Robinson of The Weather Network, these dust devils works off of the hot air on the surface and with the right atmospheric conditions.

"They're actually fairly common on these fields especially as we get into the early summer as the fields really begin to heat up," says Robinson in a video shared onto Twitter

"You get a parcel of air somewhere on the field, somewhere out there, begins to rise... as it rises, the atmosphere conditions, are just right you'll get just a bit of a spin," he adds.

And, it seems that in some rare cases, you can even get two at once!

A Twitter user shared a remarkable video of twin dust devils working their way through Chatham-Kent in Ontario on Wednesday, June 17.

But just as we shy away from cold weather during this time, so does the dust devil.

"Now, as soon as it sucks in a little bit of cold air at the surface or hits an obstruction, it dies off very, very quickly. These are not tornadoes," adds Robinson.

Although you're unlikely to see them in the middle of downtown Toronto, it seems that if you head out to the plains of Ontario, you might be lucky (or unlucky?) enough to catch one.

If you didn't already know, tornadoes can also occur in southern Ontario just like they do in the U.S., although they need to have the perfect weather conditions to occur.

So there you have it, dust devils are a thing! Who knew?