Dust Devil Engulfs Youth Softball Game as Parents Rush to Check On Players [WATCH]

Parents of youth softball players were rushing to check on players after a massive dust cloud swept across the field.

What Caused The Sudden Dust Storm?

In a now-viral video shared on Facebook, players are seen in the middle of a weekend softball game in Morris, Illinois. The city sits approximately 60 miles southwest of Chicago.

The scene is relatively calm as the pitcher tosses the ball toward home plate. Moments later, we see a huge dust cloud barreling down on the field.

"Close your eyes, close your eyes," one mom says to the young players, surprised by the sudden blast of airborne dirt.

At one point, the dust cloud obscures the entire playing field. Parents entered the field to check on the players once things had settled.

Former WGN-TV meteorologist Tom Skilling, who shared the video on Facebook, said what happened in the clip is known as a dust devil.

"The dust devil is shown spinning up without warning on this 8U softball game this past Saturday in Morris, IL," Skilling wrote in the post.

What Causes Dust Devils?

According to the National Weather Service, dust devils are "dust-filled vortices, created by strong surface heating." They're typically much smaller than tornadoes, but also capable of creating some disruption depending on size.

The NWS says dust devils can be as small as 10 feet wide and as large as 300 feet. The average dust devil height is between 500 and 1,000 feet.

Even with that size, the dust devil occurrences are fairly unpredictable.

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"Typically, they occur under clear skies and light winds, when the ground can warm the air to temperatures well above the temperatures just above the ground," the NWS explains on its website. "This is a very unstable condition, since the heated air is less dense and lighter than the cooler air above it."

The impact of the dust is amplified when the vortex crosses over two different surfaces, much like the softball field in the video, where the dust devil comes in from the outfield grass and sweeps across the infield dirt.