[ml/nj]

Why am I suspicious of this?

A dust devil has to be kicked up by atmospheric activity. The particles in the atmosphere must have sufficient mass and velocity to impart some or all of their momentum to the dust. But the atmosphere of Mars at its surface would appear to be about one 1700th of the mass of ours by volume and so seem insufficient in mass to me to kick anything up.

ML/NJ

[Red Badger]

I would think that the ‘dust’ would be RED.................

[GonzoGOP]

But the atmosphere of Mars at its surface would appear to be about one 1700th of the mass of ours by volume and so seem insufficient in mass to me to kick anything up.

Don't forget to factor in no water, so the dust grains are much finer than they are on Earth where water causes them to clump up. There is also a lot less gravity, so it is easier to get the very fine dust off the ground.

Mars gets big, hemisphere spanning dust storms.

[allmost]

The speeds are quite high. Shooting stars come to mind for the skeptic. Mars looks like a huge mine to me.

[onedoug]

“Mars has two permanent polar ice caps. During a pole’s winter, it lies in continuous darkness, chilling the surface and causing the deposition of 25–30% of the atmosphere into slabs of CO2 ice (dry ice).[70] When the poles are again exposed to sunlight, the frozen CO2 sublimes, creating enormous winds that sweep off the poles as fast as 400 km/h. These seasonal actions transport large amounts of dust and water vapor, giving rise to Earth-like frost and large cirrus clouds. Clouds of water-ice were photographed by the Opportunity rover in 2004.

......

“Mars also has the largest dust storms in our Solar System. These can vary from a storm over a small area, to gigantic storms that cover the entire planet. They tend to occur when Mars is closest to the Sun, and have been shown to increase the global temperature.” —Wikipedia

[Zuse]

Perhaps this is a better explanation than what NASA supplies:

In the Electric Universe theory, no collisions from bouncing sand grains are necessary. Charge separation already exists in the atmosphere. Without clouds like those on Earth to send lightning down to ground level, the electric discharges on Mars form giant whirlwinds that are part of an interplanetary electrical circuit.

It is that same circuit that drives weather systems on Earth. If this is true, then Martian “dust devils” and those on Earth are both illustrations of how electricity behaves in the solar system.
By Stephen Smith

http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2008/arch08/080114electrifieddustdevils.htm

[Yollopoliuhqui]

Tornadoes have been observed to have and electrical component and may be a form of plasma discharge to the upper atmosphere occurring at a much slower rate than lightning.