Close the windows during a sandstorm

This is definitely one of those lessons I learned the hard way. Yesterday we had hot wind from the south. The temperature shot up into the high 20s, and wind woke us up in the morning as it slapped date palm branches against our bedroom window. I love having open windows and was excited for it to be a bit warmer (ask me in August how I feel about warm weather then), so I opened our blinds and windows throughout the apartment. We are lucky enough to have three "kivunei avir"-- directions of air-- which meant the wind travels right through our apartment in the glories of cross-ventilation.

What I didn't take into consideration was that yesterday wasn't just wind from the south-- it was a sandstorm (known when it travels this far and is this diluted as a "dust storm," or sharav in Hebrew). I guess I'd expected "sandstorm" to look more like something out of Lawrence of Arabia-- you know, men hunched forward on camels with turbans wrapped around their faces, disappearing into the orange haze. And I'm sure that is what a sandstorm would involve if I were much further south. Here on this side of the Carmel Mountain, we are mostly sheltered, but I should have seen the signs: the sky looked cloudy, yet the clouds were yellowish. Shadows were still sharp on the lawn, indicating (if I'd been paying attention) that the clouds weren't actually thick cumulo nimbus (or whatever) after all. And yes, it did take a certain amount of willpower to ignore the fact that my hair, face, and hands were all starting to feel just a bit dry and gritty.

At any rate, this morning I was sweeping my floor when I realized that I was gathering a deep pile of reddish-brown dust. Then I wiped off our dining room table and was shocked by how quickly my paper towel turned reddish-brown. Basically, thanks to my obession with open windows (as my husband sometimes calls it), now the entire southern half of our apartment is covered in a thin dusty film... or at least it was until I spent a few hours attacking the grime this morning.

Live and learn! And now I REALLY need a shower.
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UPDATE: Muse posted beautiful descriptions and pictures of the dust storm here. Also, apparently this weather is really hazardous to those suffering from breathing conditions such as asthma, and ironically enough today is World Asthma Day.

What's a chamsin?

Not a chamsin-- this is the view from Gan haS'laim, a few weeks ago

I come from Western Pennsylvania, so I'm used to bizarre weather. (I never quite understood the lyric "rain on a sunny day," because in Pittsburgh it was so normal for it to be sunny and raining at once.) We had hail, sleet, snow, sun, rainbows, the occasional tornado, what have you.

But Israel gets one weather pattern we didn't-- the chamsin. The encylcopedia at thefreedictionary.com has this definition:

A Khamaseen is a cyclonic type wind that is common in Egypt and Sudan towards the end of March and April of each year. Hot weather ensues, as well as sandstorms. According to the Turkish Calendar of Storms it is a storm of three days, to be expected around February 1. It is an oppressive, hot, dusty, south or south-east wind occurring in North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and the Levant, intermittently in late winter through late spring. The name is derived from the Arabic for 'fifty', khamsun.

We're experiencing a small chamsin today, which means that it is suddenly in the upper 20s (that's the 80s for you Fahrenheit people) and a warm, dusty breeze is flowing in through my window. (I just noticed that the tree in my yard has leaves now, by the way-- when did that happen? I haven't figured out how or when trees in this climate lose or grow leaves.) Chamsins tend to last a few days, although it is supposed to cool down and possibly rain before Pesach. I just checked our weather report, and sure enough, the wind today is coming from the south, while the wind tomorrow is northwesterly.

It's kind of incredible to me that the breeze through my window could be blowing in from, say, Sudan (directly south of here). We share weather with countries I can't visit with my Israeli passport-- the puffy clouds over the Gan haS'laim might have drifted over from Syria to Israel, the drops of rain might have evaporated in Iraq. I have a friend in grad school 120 kilometers north in Beirut, and while I can't visit him, we probably are both feeling the same warm breeze from the south this morning.

Crazy world.