Recently my brother in law spent a week in Cairo doing some work for his company when one quiet HOT afternoon was shattered by something that resembled a fire alarm.

 Not knowing what to do he turned to the gentleman next to him and gave him pleading look, knowing full well the man spoke little English. The man, obviously scared, gathered a few things from his desk, turned to my BIL and said HABOOB... then rushed from the room.

Luckily his "contact" came into the room in time to not only EXPLAIN but give him a glimpse of something SPECTACULAR; on the way up the stairs he explained that a "Haboob" is a severly intense sandstorm is the result of a downdraft caused by the collapse of a storm in the desert. The wall of wind that is created can be up to 100 km wide and several kilometers in elevation and reach speeds of up to 50kph. But NO eplanation could prepare my BIL for what he was about to see from the roof...

 

 

 

Spectacular no?

And while I may have spent a lot of time in this blog denouncing the "Vista Gods" I DO have to say that this "photo stitch" program that came with the desktop is pretty amazing... it recognizes similar portions of a picture and "stitches" them together, giving one a true, and in this case somewhat daunting, panorama pic.

Just after these shots were taken my BIL and his contact retreated to the basment and waited out the Haboob which lasted about 10 minutes and came up to find a city covered in sand.

There ya go...

a HUGE HABOOB!

Why do I like saying that so much?

Thats it....... have a GREAT WEEKEND everyone!

Wil

WOW VERY cool pictures Wil! Dang, I bet that left behind a helluva mess to clean up!

The photo stitched picture is really neat! I've got a software program that'll do that, but I've never taken the time to try it. I'll definitely have to check it out.

Take care Hope you have a GREAT week-end!

That's okay, Wil. Maybe it's something in the air that's causing such trouble for people? I'm sorry you were having a bad day, too...

I've heard of haboobs - they can be really devastating to affected areas. I've never actually seen pictures like these ones before, though; your brother-in-law must have been pretty freaked, eh?

I hope you have a good day today, my friend. I'll be keeping you in my thoughts and prayers...

Well, you sure wouldn't want to be rafting right now, Wil; the water is really high and moving dangerously fast. In several areas, the banks have corroded and appear ready to just fall into the water.

It's still pretty country to be in, though. Everything is really green and lush because of all the rain, and it smells absolutely heavenly...

Friday, June 15th 2007 @ 09:45:23 (448 days, 12h, 43min ago)