khamsin
kahm-SEEN
A hot, dry, sand-bearing wind that blows across Egypt and the eastern Mediterranean, typically in spring. It can raise temperatures by 20 degrees Celsius in hours and fill the air with a fine, orange dust that infiltrates everything.
Etymology
Arabic khamsīn, meaning "fifty" — the wind is said to blow intermittently over a fifty-day period in spring, roughly between Easter and Pentecost.
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