Hanford ‘tumbleweed tornado’ engulfs Highway 240 driver

A Seattle-based visual journalist captured a devil of a “tumbleweed tornado” while on assignment Thursday in Eastern Washington.

Matt M. McKnight was driving north on Highway 240 near the Hanford Nuclear Reservation when he noticed “a few scattered tumbleweeds bouncing along the road.”

“Moments later it was a bunch grouped together and I needed to slow down a bit,” McKnight told the Tri-City Herald. “Then I looked about a hundred yards down the road and saw a tumbleweed devil forming quickly — so I pulled over to be safe.”

McKnight works for Crosscut, an independent, nonprofit news site covering the Pacific Northwest.

He posted an 11-second video to his Twitter account at 3:46 p.m. Thursday, just minutes after the tumbleweed devil created by strong winds went directly into “Bessie,” his 1985 VW Vanagon.

“Hey y’all I’m fortunate enough to travel Washington on assignments for @Crosscut/@KCTS9 when I get to find craziness like this randomly,” McKnight said in a tweet. The video had nearly 165,000 views by Thursday evening.

McKnight told the Herald that the van allows him to self-isolate while on overnight trips during the coronavirus pandemic.

He said Bessie appears to be fine with some minor scratches and “a whole lot of tumbleweeds that I needed to clear from the undercarriage.”

“The most nerve-wracking part was actually driving out of the pile that had surrounded me,” he added.