Independence Day Sunrise
The sun is there, you can see it reflected in the clouds, but not yet able to break through the clouds. LOL, the weather report for today says “Clear.” We had one big huge lightning strike, and a little rain last night, and – at least where I live – there are a lot of big fluffy clouds in the sky – it is NOT clear. If these clouds gather together, it could get rainy again – not such a bad thing, but definitely a damper on Independence Day celebrations.
Is Kuwait going to have any fireworks – Independence Day or Liberation Day? I mean the official kind, the great big kind?
Barely There Sunrise
You’ll have to look closely, but the sun is there, hidden in the bands of smog hanging over the horizon today. The reflection on the clouds was pearly, and beautiful.
Although technically, the holidays don’t start until tomorrow, they seem to have started early for many. 🙂 Have a great day, Kuwait.
Pale Monday Sunrise
This is it – slightly better than yesterday, when we couldn’t see the sun at all, but the small, continuing headache tells me this is a sandstorm, ongoing. When you are in the middle of it (for those of you not here) one day seems endless, two days seems more than you can bear. The very air you breathe feels heavy. I tell myself it is a mist, but my sneezing and itchy eyes tell me otherwise.
We call it sandstorm, but I know what sandstorm is like – in Qatar, a sandstorm has SAND, it abrades your face, it piles up in the roads, it is very sandy sand, an English Patient kind of sandstorm. Here, it is sand the size of dust and grit. Your face feels dry and tight and gritty, there are no piles in your house, but your feet leave tracks across the thin layer of dust, so tiny it seeps through sealed windows and the bathroom exhaust fans.
In the midst of a sandstorm, Count Almasy explain the different kinds of storms:
This is from library.thinkquest and is short and sweet and explains the differences:
“In a few minutes there will be no stars. The air is filling with sand.”
Dust storms are common in arid regions.They are not to be confused to be sandstorms. A true desert sandstorms is a low cloud of moving sand that rises usually only a few centimetres and at most two metres above the ground. Above this level the air is almost entirely free of sand. Sandstorm consists of sand particles driven by a strong wind. It is rarer in occurrence.
Where winds are exceptionally strong and large quantities of loose soil are available, dust storms may develop. These can reduce surface visibilities to only a few metres. Normally only silt and clay particles are carried in suspension by the wind.
A dust storm approaches as a dark cloud extending from the ground surface to heights of several kilometres. It can take the form of an advancing wall or a whirlwind and are usually short lasting, although some storms of up to 12 hours have been recorded.
Within the dust cloud, there is deep gloom or even total darkness as the sun is blot out. A large dust storm can carry more than 100 metric tons of dust – enough to make a hill 30m high and 3km across the base. Dust from a single dust storm is often traceable as far as 4000 km. After a particularly violent storm in Algeria in 1947, red desert dust, mixed with snow, turned parts of the Swiss Alps pink.
The onset of dust storms is sometimes marked by an increase in respiratory infections and germs borne by the dust particles appear to be responsible for outbreaks of cerebral spinal meningitis.
Friday Sunrise, 20 Feb 2009
Good morning, Kuwait. It looks like it may rain. The clouds obscuring the sun this morning were the kind that if enough of them could get together, we could have some rain. We need it.
Weather Underground: Kuwait tells me it is clear this morning:
It is not clear. It is very cloudy, and there is a haze over the water. It is not clear.
On the other hand, I remember barely a month ago when the temperature right now – 55°F/13°C – was the high expected for the entire day.
Have a great day, Kuwait. 🙂
A New Day
We groaned as the alarm went off – too early – this morning, but AdventureMan had a full plate and needed to get an early start. I also got an early start, and even caught a breath of fresh air, out on the balcony this morning snapping the sunrise.
I wish you all a great weekend! 🙂
Sunrise, 18 February 2009
As you can see, there is a very thick band of something . . . clouds? pollution? that the sun could not break through until it was inches above the horizon. The haze is diminished today, but still there. It isn’t orange, so if it is sand, it is more local sand, not that orange stuff that comes down every now and then from the Jordanian / Iraqi desert.
It is also starting to get hot. Yesterday, the forecast high was 80°F, but with all the haze, I don’t think it got there. This is the forecast for the rest of the week:
Sunrise: As Good As it Gets
I’ve been waiting and waiting. It’s been days since there has been a good sunrise, or even a visible sunrise. This morning, this is as good as it gets. Please forgive my rain streaked (woo hooo!) windows:
Weather Underground: Kuwait says it is going to get up to 78°F/27°C today. Sigh. I have the air conditioning still off. I don’t want to turn it on again, but with 77% humidity . . . it just makes me sad, turning on the a/c in February. 😦
Today, there really is a light haze; I can see maybe 500 meters off the coast. Maybe the sun will burn the haze off.
The Sultan Center is packing away all the Valentine’s Day supplies, and has brought out all the Kuwait Independence / Liberation Day supplies – have you stocked up?
Better, Still Sandy
Once again, we have “light haze.” This is better than yesterday – we can see the shore – but this is not what I would call a light haze. Taken around 7:30 a.m.
There is a 20% chance of rain on Monday. We surely need rain to damp down all this new orange sand.
My sister, Sparkle, asked if people don’t wear gauze masks when the sand blows in like this. Yes, Sparkle, you see them everywhere, but most people who can, stay home, stay inside. Even inside, last night when it was time to go to sleep, it felt like breathing underwater, the air feels thick and heavy. It gives you a little headache after a while, trying to breathe.
This morning is a little better; maybe there has been some shift in atmospheric pressure. Even though the sun is up, you don’t see a lot of orange like yesterday, but the thick haze in front of my house is more a tangerine-tinged cream color.
Weirder still, there are two new layers of sand on the beach in front of our house, orange and oranger:
Transition Sunrise
I was shocked when I looked at the five day forecast and saw that the high temperature for tomorrow is 80°F / 27°C. Holy smokes. Winter is over. 80° is about as hot as I can handle without A/C – around 80° in Florida, fleas eggs start hatching, and it is time to flea-proof the house. We don’t have the same problem with fleas here, probably due to the air conditioning, on most months of the year.
This morning’s sunrise is barely less murky than yesterday’s. The weather reporter says “light haze” but sometimes it says that in the middle of a heavy dust storm, so I don’t put a lot of credibility in what it says.
The days are getting perceptibly longer. In our neighborhood, when the meuzzin “chants” for the dawn prayers, it is not so hard to get up. We are blessed to have a tenor muezzin, who loves the morning call to prayer, and does it with great melodiousness and passion. It is a wonderful way to wake up.
Have a great day, Kuwait.
Murky Morning
It is one of those transitional weather days, not raining, not clear, somewhere in between and it could go either way:
I was sleeping soundly and happily this morning when I heard a very very loud “AAACCCCKKKKKKK” and I jumped out of bed, adrenaline pumping, thinking “Is someone strange in the house?” I listened, didn’t hear anything else, so went to the living room where the Qatteri Cat was lying on the floor. Maybe a blade of grass tickled his throat (I make bowls of grass for him to help digestion; long haired cats get clogs sometimes) or maybe he sneezed, or jumped down from his high perch by the window, I don’t know. I patted him and he followed me back to bed where we both snoozed a little until time to get up.
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