Khamsin

Around the world there are many fascinating names for wind. The Khamsin (also called khamseen, khamaseen, chamsin or hamsin) is a hot, dry and dusty one that blows from the south over Egypt, the Red Sea and eastern parts of the Mediterranean. The word means fifty, and the wind commonly blows sporadically over 50 days. It’s most prevalent during March and April and carries sand from the desert, causes great rises in temperature, and can reach speeds of 140 kilometres per hour. The Khamsin caused problems for Napoleon during his Egyptian campaign, and also for German troops in North Africa during World War II.

Lerner and Loewe wrote a song called “They Call the Wind Maria” (Mariah) for their hit Broadway musical Paint Your Wagon (1951). Before that George Rippey Stewart wrote a novel (published in 1941) called Storm in which a gigantic storm sweeps across the Pacific Ocean, wreaking havoc on San Francisco and the California coast.  The storm was called Maria (Ma-rye-ah). I found one source that said this led to the practise of naming hurricanes after women, but other sources say that hurricanes in the West Indies were often called after the saint’s day on which they occurred, and apparently there was an Australian meteorologist in the 19^th century who gave women’s names to tropical storms. Note: supposedly Mariah Carey was named after the storm in the song above.

One can go not quite from A to Z with the names of winds, but there are names that start with B – Bise is a northerly one that blows in the southeastern mountains of France and western mountains of Switzerland in winter. And the Zonda is the name of two different winds in South America – a dry and dusty wind over the eastern slopes of the Andes in Argentina in winter, and a hot humid northerly wind that blows over the Pampas.
In western Canada we love the Chinook, a warm wind that eats snow. Check out http://www.islandnet.com/~see/weather/journal/canwxwords.htm for other Canadian wind names (and weather words) – the Alberta Clipper, Bonspiel Thaw, Ground Drifter, the Cow Storm (a strong gale on Ellesmere Island that can blow the horns off a musk ox), Wreckhouse Winds, and the Keewatin.

Does naming winds go back to naming gods and goddesses? Winds after all can be very powerful and are important to us, not only in their potential destructive power, but also in the beneficial weather they bring (e.g. rain). In the past they had value for their ability to take us (sailing ships and boats) where we needed and wanted to go.

Songs about wind include “Blowing in the Wind,” “Four Strong Winds,” “The Wayward Wind,” “Wind Beneath My Wings,” “Like a Hurricane,” and “Carey (The Wind is in from Africa).”