Washington State

Tornado of tumbleweeds: Video captures crazy scene months after ‘tumblegeddon’ in WA

Imagine driving down a highway and getting caught in a tornado of tumbleweeds.

Matt McKnight captured a video of tumbleweeds swirling around him on a stretch of State Route 204, the same highway that closed for 10 hours back in January after tumbleweeds buried cars near the Hanford nuclear site, the Tri-City Herald reported. The tumbleweeds even buried a semi-truck, The New York Times reported at the time.

Authorities aptly nicknamed that event “tumblegeddon,” according to the Times. This time wasn’t nearly as bad, although the video is going viral online after McKnight, a journalist for Crosscut, shared the video on social media.

It’s not entirely clear what caused the odd tornado this time around, but ’tumblegeddon’, which garnered international news coverage, was a result of changing weather patterns, the Tri-City Herald reported. An unusually snowy winter and wet spring the year before resulted in a bumper crop of tumbleweeds, followed by unusually calm winds in the region, according to the Herald.

Washington state Department of Transportation workers unburied a car Wednesday morning that had been abandoned New Years Eve along Highway 240 as wind blew thousands of tumbleweeds across the roadway.
Washington state Department of Transportation workers unburied a car Wednesday morning that had been abandoned New Years Eve along Highway 240 as wind blew thousands of tumbleweeds across the roadway. Courtesy Washington State Patrol

On New Year’s Eve, winds picked back up and blew the excess of tumbleweeds into piles 20 to 30 feet high, the Times reported. The highway cuts through a flat plain along the Hanford nuclear reservation, where the U.S. government produced plutonium for the Manhattan Project during World War II, according to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.

Wind-blown tumbleweeds cover a vehicle on Highway 240 northwest of Richland on New Year’s Eve.
Wind-blown tumbleweeds cover a vehicle on Highway 240 northwest of Richland on New Year’s Eve. Courtesy DOT

Tumbleweeds and whipping winds are commonfor the region, which exists in a desert-like climate, according to the New York Times.

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Brooke Wolford
The News Tribune
Brooke is native of the Pacific Northwest and most recently worked for KREM 2 News in Spokane, Washington, as a digital and TV producer. She also worked as a general assignment reporter for the Coeur d’Alene Press in Idaho. She is an alumni of Washington State University, where she received a degree in journalism and media production from the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication.
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