Khamseen Season

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Khamseen Season

Post by Goddess »

Judging from the amount of sand that was dumped on my balcony this afternoon, the Khamseen has started!

So think it's time we all educate ourselves on why my balcony is soooo dirty:

Khamsin
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Khamsin, khamseen, chamsin or hamsin (Egyptian Arabic: خمسين khamsīn, "fifty"), also known as khamaseen (Egyptian Arabic: خماسين khamāsīn, "fifties") 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.

Khamsin can be triggered by depressions that move eastwards along the southern parts of the Mediterranean or along the North African coast from February to June.[1]

In Egypt, khamsin usually arrives in April but occasionally occur in March and May, carrying great quantities of sand and dust from the deserts, with a speed up to 140 kilometers per hour, and a rise of temperatures as much as 20°C in two hours.[2] It is believed to blow "at intervals for about 50 days",[3] although it rarely occurs "more than once a week and last for just a few hours at a time."[4] An 19th-century account of khamsin in Egypt goes:

These winds, though they seldom cause the thermometer of Fahrenheit to rise above 95° in Lower Egypt, or in Upper Egypt 105°, are dreadfully oppressive, even to the natives. When the plague visits Egypt, it is generally in the spring; and the disease is most severe in the period of the khamáseen.[5]

The same account relates that Muslims in Egypt "calculate the period of khamáseen ... to commence on the day immediately following the Coptic festival of Easter Sunday, and to terminate on the Day of Pentecost (or Whitsunday); and interval of forty-nine days."[6]

During Napoleon's Egyptian Campaign, the French soldiers had a hard time with khamsin: when the storm appeared "as a blood-stint in the distant sky", the natives went to take cover, while the French "did not react until it was too late, then choked and fainted in the blinding, suffocating walls of dust."[7] During the North African Campaign of the World War II, "allied and German troops were several times forced to halt in mid-battle because of sandstorms caused by khamsin ... Grains of sand whirled by the wind blinded the soldiers and created electrical disturbances that rendered compasses useless."[8]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khamaseen


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Post by DJKeefy »

Call me what you like, but i love it when its windy and everything goes a murky orange colour in Luxor :) maybe its the change i like from the everyday sunshine, sunshine, sunshine... BTW it was 97F today :)
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Post by Lisak »

Ooh Keefy, you could be in my book I've written. My main charachter, loves the winds and the way it changes the colour of the sky and the landscape, however, when the winds come, Sekhmet unleashes her powers and the djinns come tantalising Ariella, the girl in my story until she is given a mission to do which she will fulfill in her adult life.
Life isn't about how to survive the storm, but how to dance in the rain.
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Post by BBLUX »

I see Goddess is back on her favourite subject....WIND! :lol:

Yes, we have had 3 glorious days here in Luxor peaking at 36 C the last 2 days but today the wind is picking up and the Theban hills have dissappeared. Air quality is definitely down as my body system is telling me :(
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Post by crazycat »

well I hope it settles before we get there :)
when she was good she was very very good but when she was bad she was better :snig:
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Post by Goddess »

Who's got wind now then BB??!!

:lol:

Sounds like you're just about to get coated in sand too! We had a really nasty hot spot the day before too.
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Post by FABlux »

:lol: No Goddess he hasn't got wind, just very low BP :cry:
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Post by Goddess »

FABlux wrote::lol: No Goddess he hasn't got wind, just very low BP :cry:
Oooh do be careful with the BP thing. Maybe it's the air pressure affecting it a bit too? Hopefully when the sandstorm is done and dusted (big groan!) you'll feel a bit better BB.
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Post by PRchick »

Oh dear. With my asthma, I'd have to be indoors the entire time.
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Post by BBLUX »

Fran has that as well so we will have to hide indoors and watch out for one another.
We did take a good, steady walk through the Valley of the Colours this afternoon and both felt refreshed in the breeze. We were in the lee of the mountain so there was no dust but it did not look too good over in Luxor.
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Post by jewel »

This was in todays telegraph:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picture ... ports.html

I didnt like the khamaseen season when I lived in Egypt....sand everywhere! but the worst thing was with the changing weather there were a lot of bugs about and I nearly always seemed to go down with one :(
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Post by Karenh »

It must be terrible being stuck in a sand storm, but does it get that bad in Luxor, Cairo?
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Post by FABlux »

That is some sandstorm over Riyadh :cry:

We were talking to Wael yesterday in Gerda's & he says this is not the Khamseen, the wind is from the wrong direction (NW) but this period is infamous for all the illnesses that go around.
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Post by BBLUX »

I seem to remember our very own Goddess posted a link in the dim, distant past to a website which listed the names of all the common cyclical winds and their dates of occurrence in Egypt.
I have Googled myself silly (not difficult I know :oops: ) but cannot find it now.
Any idea's?
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Post by Goddess »

Thought you were calling me dim then!

Hmm, yes, I remember that, but me and that search button on L4U have never gotten on so I ain't even going try searching for it there - will try typing random words into Google and see what pops out again.
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Post by HEPZIBAH »

[face=Comic Sans MS]I experienced quite a few sandstorms when crossing the Sahara in the 1980's. One lasted nearly 3 days and all we could do was stop travelling and sit it out. We lost visual contact with our co vehicle quite early on, CB radios were illegal, and this was before the days of mobile phones so we just had to hope that eventually, if both leaders decided to stop and 'make camp' fairly quickly, that we would not be too far apart when visabilty returned. Infact it took as a day to find each other. Another memorable sandstorm happened when I was staying at house in a town in Niger. We could hear it approaching before we saw it, and it was as though it was bringing with it the shouts and cries of people through the centuries, it was very strange. We closed and blocked all the windows and the doors that were not needed for immediate use but the amount of sand that built up inside the hose was unbelievable. It was also quite difficult to breath as the air inside became so hot too.[/face]
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Post by Goddess »

Beats me where I found that weather calendar thingy!
Just been to find the one I have on paper and tried typing words into google off it for the storm names - and still nothing popped up!

I can tell you though that according to my weather almanac thingy we just had a storm called al Hassum happens on 7th March and lasts for 2 days, came from the North West to North East and is sometimes Rainy. Next storm due to start tomorrow and is cunningly called "the rest of Hassum", 2 days from NW also sometimes rainy. Bear in mind this is for Alex - you're about a day or two later.
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Post by BBLUX »

We were talking with Wael yesterday afternoon. He is from Alex and he told us about that Hassum thingy. I couldn't remember the name he used until you posted it :roll:

I tried to dig the old thread out using the L4U search tool but got all sorts of totally unrelated crap so gave up as well.

Keep digging......hehe, thoughts of Goddess doing a good impression of a manic dog excavating to Australia :lol:
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Post by Goddess »

Think it might just be easier if I type it all out!
I spent an hour playing with the search button on L4U and googled and I concede defeat. All I have discovered is that I waffle a lot!

So just off to do something useful for a while and will type it all into a new post later on so we don't lose it for next year! :roll:
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Post by BBLUX »

I promise to copy it off the forum and back it up for you :)
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