Local wind, or What is sirocco?

This term can be heard quite rarely, of course, if you do not live in sunny Italy or somewhere nearby. What is sirocco (or even widespread - sometimes they say so)? This name is applied to the wind of the Mediterranean basin, which is born in the depths of the deserts of Africa (North) or comes from the Middle East. He is quite strong, in different places he has his own specifics and even names.

Local wind

The origin and meaning of the word sirocco is known. The name has Italian roots and comes from the Arabic word "sharq" (that is, "east" in translation).

What is sirocco? This regular air flow differs in some features from the main (general) circulations in the planet’s atmosphere, but it has a significant mutual influence on the weather of the region. This factor classifies it as a local wind. As permanent, local values ​​- are regular and repeated, have a significant impact on weather conditions, but with a limitation of the sector of the water area, natural landscape. By the way, the group includes, for example, a breeze that changes twice a day, and mountain, valley winds, and some others.

Causes of occurrence

What is sirocco? The appearance of this kind of phenomena is associated with the temperature difference over the body of water or mountains, with the location of the valleys, with a change in the circulation in the atmosphere due to local conditions. Some local winds are inherently air currents in the general atmospheric circulation. In any region, they may have special properties. And residents of a certain area attribute them to local ones, give their own names to the winds.

For example, in a body of water such as Lake Baikal, there are more than five local-scale winds due to the difference in the heating of land and the water mass due to the complex arrangement of mountain ranges with valleys of significant depth. Among them are barguzin (north-eastern and warm), mountain (from the north-west), causing storms, sarma (western, sudden) with a hurricane force of 80 meters per second, a valley crochet and shellon.

What is sirocco: definition

The direction of this wind is south. Or southeast, sometimes east and southwest. In the center of formation, when the air mass passes the mountains of southern Europe, from the leeward side it acquires the characteristics of a hair dryer, a strong and gusty warm wind blowing from the mountains to the valleys. Sirocco arises at any time of the year. But less often in summer, and more often in spring and autumn. The sirocco reaches greater strength in November and March. Sometimes it develops a frantic speed (100 km / h) and reaches a storm force (9 according to Beaufort), although it is considered a natural phenomenon of medium strength. Strengthens in the afternoon, in the evening and at night it slightly weakens. It usually blows for several days in a row, but sometimes it can calm down in half a day, and sometimes it lasts many days. What does sirocco mean to an outsider, for example a tourist? As a rule, in terms of well-being he acts depressingly, causing melancholy and depression. However, local residents, accustomed to the phenomenon from childhood, are not discouraged and even love this wind in their own way, giving it personalized features.

Impact

It is believed that this is a burning, dusty, suffocating wind with high temperature indicators (at night +35 degrees at low humidity). However, in the Mediterranean (in some regions) it is warm and humid, if sea. Sometimes it causes dusty and dry weather along the entire coast of northern Africa, as well as a storm in the Mediterranean Sea, as a result - cold, wet weather in Europe.

The dust that sirocco brings spoils mechanical devices and ends up in homes. The wind is considered harmful to human health - it is dry or wet. The phenomena cause disorders of the nervous system, headaches, weakness and disturbance of sleep processes, increased irritability.

It is interesting!

• In the literature: Sirocco served as the cause of the cholera epidemic in the story "Death in Venice" (T. Mann).
• In the Dubrovnik Republic there are local traditions that in ancient times crimes that were committed during the “work” of the sirocco could be forgiven or classified as mild due to the negative impact of this wind on the mood of the average citizen.
• In Antiquity, he was called rather affectionately: "Libyan flutist."
• Sometimes the wind brings the red-white dust of the Sahara desert to the northern regions, and then precipitation occurs in the form of a "bloody" or "milk" rain.

GMT

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