Khamsin
| Khamsin in hieroglyphs | |||||
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Resetyu Rstyw The south winds |
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Khamsīn , chamsin or hamsin (Arabic: خمسين khamsīn, "fifty"), more commonly known in Egypt as khamaseen (Egyptian Arabic: خماسين khamasīn, IPA: [xæmæˈsiːn]), is a dry, hot, sandy local wind, blowing from the south, in North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. Similar winds in the area are sirocco and simoom. From the Arabic word for "fifty", throughout the Levant, these dry, sand-filled windstorms often blow sporadically over a fifty day period in Spring, hence the name.
When the storm passes over an area, lasting for several hours, it carries great quantities of sand and dust from the deserts, with a speed up to 140 kilometers per hour, and the humidity in that area drops below 5%. Even in winter, the temperatures rise above 45°C due to the storm. The sand storms are reported to have seriously impeded both Napoleon's military campaigns in Egypt as well as Allied-German fighting in North Africa in World War II.
Khamsin can be triggered by cyclones that move eastwards along the southern parts of the Mediterranean or along the North African coast from February to June.
In Egypt, khamsin usually arrives in April but occasionally can occur between March to 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. It is believed to blow "at intervals for about 50 days", although it rarely occurs "more than once a week and last for just a few hours at a time." A 19th-century account of khamsin in Egypt goes:
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