Good evening, everyone.

A Saharan low made its way northeastwards bringing abundant amounts of
sand with it and, ofcourse, southerlies to its east. Pure Foehn effect
in northern Crete, where temperatures reached +29.9C in the town of
Chania in the afternoon, but only locally.
On similar conditions, it is not uncommon to see bands of land report
temperatures by as much as 7-9 Centigrades higher than the surrounding
areas, as the wind is locally accelerated between mountains and hills
(Bernoulli effect), thus making it easier for stable air masses aloft
to go all the way downhill and give a localised, untimely sense of
summer.

2m temperature forecast (MM5) for 071200 UTC. Watch the local maxima to
the north of Crete and the Peloponnesian mountain ranges:
http://www.noa.gr/forecast/t2m_f_12mm5.gif

Wind direction and speed forecast for the same time:
http://www.noa.gr/forecast/wind_f_12mm5.gif

Picture from Chania (sand) by Leandros Symeonidis:
http://hellasweather.epigeo.gr/displ....php?pos=-8299

Athens itself started to feel the Saharan kisses in the afternoon, as
blue skies gave way to dust. Is it just me or have these events with
dust advection become slightly more frequent during the last two years?

Also a remembrance day for the latest season snow in Athens (April 7th,
1997) and Thessaloniki (April 7th, 2003) that I can remember.

Map of regions (capitals) and cities (small caps) mentioned in this
post:
http://www.e-kairos.gr/misc/ota.jpg

Yannis, SE Athens
+16.4C, RH 68%, SLP 1006.5 hPa

Yannis wrote in message
.com...
:A Saharan low made its way northeastwards bringing abundant amounts of
:sand with it and, ofcourse, southerlies to its east. Pure Foehn effect
:in northern Crete, where temperatures reached +29.9C in the town of
:Chania in the afternoon, but only locally.

Gale force duststorm at Herakleion in Crete
http://weather.noaa.gov/weather/current/LGIR.html

Colin Youngs
Brussels

Indeed, Colin, the recently installed Davis in Knosos
(http://www.meteo.gr/stations/heraclion) reported a wind gust of 95 kph.

Colin Youngs wrote:

Gale force duststorm at Herakleion in Crete
http://weather.noaa.gov/weather/current/LGIR.html

Terra image quite clearly shows the dust:
http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/r...121500.2km.jpg
or http://tinyurl.com/erx3x

--
Jonathan Stott
Canterbury Weather: http://www.canterburyweather.co.uk/
Reverse my e-mail address to reply by e-mail

Yannis wrote:
Indeed, Colin, the recently installed Davis in Knosos
(http://www.meteo.gr/stations/heraclion) reported a wind gust of 95 kph.

There is a pressure fall at about 16h of over 4 mb in a quarter
of an hour but no sudden change in any of the other elements. Falls
like that are normally gravity waves, but does anyone know a bit more
about this?

Tudor Hughes, Warlingham, Surrey.