As a result, I was struggling a bit for a blog topic this week. I have a few ideas that have been brewing - a photo essay of water infrastructure, medical tourism, feral cats, friday in Amman - and couldn't really think about what to write. And then, quite unexpectedly, an entirely new thing happened today. A khamseen.
Here's what the world wide web tells me:
Khamsin, khamseen, chamsin or hamsin (Arabic: خمسين ), also known as khamaseen (Arabic: خماسين) refers to a dry, hot and dusty local wind blowing in North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. Similar winds in the area are sirocco and simoom.
In other words: a dust storm.
It was a grey morning, nothing really remarkable but noticeably hot and somehow stifling. Over the course of the day, sitting in the office, the sky turned a grey-orange colour, the way the light turns green in Canada just before a big thunderstorm. But I was too busy to really take notice. And too irritable, in any case. Then as I was heading home at 6pm with a colleague, you couldn't help but remark: the air was thick and dry and hard to breath like a smog inversion. At this point my colleague says: "it's a half khamaseenee... it's starting a bit early this year...".
In arabic, "khamsa" means 5 and khamseen is 50, which is the source of the wind's name. If you are like me, you immediately think of the sequence in The English Patient where Count Almasy tells Katherine about the different winds of the desert: "There is the hot, dry ghibli from Tunis, which rolls and rolls and produces a nervous condition. The haboob—a Sudan dust storm that dresses in bright yellow walls a thousand metres high and is followed by rain. The harmattan, which blows and eventually drowns itself into the Atlantic. Imbat, a sea breeze in North Africa. Some winds that just sigh towards the sky. Night dust storms that come with the cold. The khamsin, a dust in Egypt from March to May, named after the Arabic word for ‘fifty,’ blooming for fifty days–the ninth plague of Egypt."
What is interesting - and didn't actually occur to me and my colleague until well into the evening - was how much the weather affected our mood. I had a sleepless night last night - just couldn't settle until well after 3am - and couldn't figure out why. And today everyone was irritable at the office. Shockingly so. Two of my most easy going colleagues were truly grumpy. And so was I, again for no good reason. It turns out that this is truly a notorious 'ill wind' - crime rates rise, tempers flare. Now that I know what is going on, I feel better. A bit. I do hope tomorrow dawns clear, though.
That being said, this wind did lead me to this lovely page on the BBC website about the winds of the world : http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/features/understanding/wind_world.shtml. Question: why are there so few named winds in North America? Comments anyone?
Khamsin, khamseen, chamsin or hamsin (Arabic: خمسين ), also known as khamaseen (Arabic: خماسين) refers to a dry, hot and dusty local wind blowing in North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. Similar winds in the area are sirocco and simoom.
In other words: a dust storm.
It was a grey morning, nothing really remarkable but noticeably hot and somehow stifling. Over the course of the day, sitting in the office, the sky turned a grey-orange colour, the way the light turns green in Canada just before a big thunderstorm. But I was too busy to really take notice. And too irritable, in any case. Then as I was heading home at 6pm with a colleague, you couldn't help but remark: the air was thick and dry and hard to breath like a smog inversion. At this point my colleague says: "it's a half khamaseenee... it's starting a bit early this year...".
In arabic, "khamsa" means 5 and khamseen is 50, which is the source of the wind's name. If you are like me, you immediately think of the sequence in The English Patient where Count Almasy tells Katherine about the different winds of the desert: "There is the hot, dry ghibli from Tunis, which rolls and rolls and produces a nervous condition. The haboob—a Sudan dust storm that dresses in bright yellow walls a thousand metres high and is followed by rain. The harmattan, which blows and eventually drowns itself into the Atlantic. Imbat, a sea breeze in North Africa. Some winds that just sigh towards the sky. Night dust storms that come with the cold. The khamsin, a dust in Egypt from March to May, named after the Arabic word for ‘fifty,’ blooming for fifty days–the ninth plague of Egypt."What is interesting - and didn't actually occur to me and my colleague until well into the evening - was how much the weather affected our mood. I had a sleepless night last night - just couldn't settle until well after 3am - and couldn't figure out why. And today everyone was irritable at the office. Shockingly so. Two of my most easy going colleagues were truly grumpy. And so was I, again for no good reason. It turns out that this is truly a notorious 'ill wind' - crime rates rise, tempers flare. Now that I know what is going on, I feel better. A bit. I do hope tomorrow dawns clear, though.
That being said, this wind did lead me to this lovely page on the BBC website about the winds of the world : http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/features/understanding/wind_world.shtml. Question: why are there so few named winds in North America? Comments anyone?
What about mariah? I mean, the wind they called.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkmvwCpcZlM
And I vote for feral cats. A video of a feral cat riding around on a Roomba in Amman would be even more impressive. Find that and your mood will change instantly.
As soon as you mentioned wind I did think of Count Almasy... well, Ralph Fiennes to be precise, playing the Count... My only real visual word for wind is from another favorite literary work, the World of Pooh; Piglet's blustery day. Jan. XOX.
ReplyDeleteHey Lorna, didn't they call that wind Moriah?
ReplyDeleteAs for named winds in North America, there's the Santa Ana winds in Los Angeles that accompany fire season. They also bring a crime and suicide along too, apparently.
Growing up on the Atlantic we were certainly familiar with the sound of a Sou'wester. It isn't just a direction. It's a distinctive kind of wind and you know it's going to blow for days when you feel it. It's a winter wind but it's wet and warm. There's some alliteration for you, Melville style, as befits the nautical nature of the narrative.
No dammit, they didn't call that wind Moriah. (It was actually called Maria in the original script for Paint your Wagon.)
ReplyDeleteIll Wind is a great song too. (I couldn't find the Lena Horne version)
I had forgotten about Mariah!
ReplyDeleteI was thinking about the Santa Ana winds, though, like you BSL. I always think of them as having a (malevolent) personality because they play such a strong character role in a couple of Raymond Chandler novels.
In addition to Sou'westers, there are also Nor'easters. But honestly, why can't we come up with something like "Sirocco" or "Simoon" instead of "the east wind that blows the smell of the pulp and paper mill from Fort Coulonge our way" (as the wind in Deep River is generally known)?
Yes, Chinook is the only one I can think of, besides Sou'Westers, but I'm sure we took that name from England. And as far as I know, we don't attribute any physiological effects to the Chinook, though a Föhn-provoked headache can get you the day off here in Austria.
ReplyDeleteI know another pulp'n'paper wind from Ottawa, though there it is usually a bitter nor'easter that brings chill, damp weather and then adds insult to injury with the smell. A Cold Stinker is what I'd call it.
I also had the experience of going up Mount Nebo to see the Promised Land and not actually seeing it, but in my case it was fog (or as the CTV guys kept calling it during the Olympics, "low-lying cloud".)
When I lived in the foothills of the Rockies, I lived at the exact point where the winds would come off the mountains, and turn into chinooks. My sister lived 20 minutes to the west and got none of it, we got it hard. They were remarkable. One morning I was working in a shed - I trekked out just after sunrise to fire up the heater - it was -17. An hour and a half later it was +10, and it was abundantly clear why strange things happen in people during drastic air pressure changes. I once heard that the rate of murder goes up substantially during a mistral, in southern France. Not hard to imagine that morning. Later, while visiting a friend in Minnesota, I learned that they call chinooks "Canadian clippers". Sure. Blame Canada.
ReplyDelete