Tumbleweeds have invaded a series of towns in Nevada and Utah, in the south-west United States.
Videos on social media and by local news outlets show hundreds of the spiky balls bouncing along roads and covering cars and houses in high winds.
John Young from South Jordan, south of Salt Lake City, woke up on Saturday to see his front yard covered in the plants.
As they scratched up against his ute and home, he was left without much to do but laugh and hope the wind would change.
“We’ve had a few tumbleweeds but nothing like this,” Young told TV station KLS.
“We had an area over here that filled up two years ago, maybe. But nothing to this volume. It’s absolutely crazy.”
Stan Romero from the suburb of Daybreak, in the same city, said a wall of the pests “10 foot high” (three metres) started coming in his garage door when he opened it.
National Weather Service Salt Lake City warned of wind gusts beyond 100km/h in the lead-up to what South Jordan communications manager Rachel Van Cleave said was not the city’s first “tumblemegadon”.
Winds also knocked down trees and power lines in other parts of the state before snow descended and frosted over the tumbleweeds.
South Jordan City on Saturday said its crews were out clearing tumbleweeds from roads and placing rubbish bins around the area to help residents get rid of them.
It also said there may be damage to city infrastructure.
Another video showed tumbleweeds flying down a wide street on the edge of an open plain and a petrol station.
According to the UK’s National History Museum, tumbleweeds in the US are generally the invasive species Russian thistle, which exploded on the back of agriculture and other development from the late 1800s on.
“Russian thistle is an expert at exploiting loose, disturbed soil with little competing vegetation,” the museum says. This is exactly what it found in the ploughed land of the Great Plains. As pioneer farmers cut down prairie grasses and other native vegetation to make space for crops, they created a suitable habitat for the invasive Russian thistle.
As well as causing a traffic hazard and damaging things they come into contact with, the dry, fast-moving plant can be a significant fire risk.
