Friday, June 26, 2009

A Ghost Harmattan in Nairobi City

Yesterday afternoon I "updated" this piece on my Twitter page.

Just thought I should post it here in order to share it with my blog visitors. So, here:

A palpable temp drop, dwntwn, this mid-aft. A ghost harmattan, sort-of, grips da city. A romp of dry leaves, which -- let them romp

Incidentally, one of this morning's papers reports that a strong wind blew a small plane off the runway and into the trees yesterday afternoon [killing a 70-year-old lady, seriously injuring the pilot, and attracting a band of looters], as it tried to land at Malindi, Kenya. I don't know if there was a connection with the winds experienced in Nairobi.

What connection there was was in what we noted and what surprised us when we got home last night. There had been rain in our part of town (while there had been not a drop in downtown Nairobi). Yet what was remarkable about the afternoon wasn't the rain there but the strong winds that had accompanied it.

So, it seems, the ghost harmattan was more widespread that I'd originally thought.

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