A hot, dry, dust-laden southerly wind that blows across Egypt and other parts of the eastern Mediterranean and Middle East, typically in spring, as a low-pressure system moving eastward draws hot air northward out of the Sahara. A khamsin episode can raise temperatures dramatically within hours and reduce visibility to near zero under blowing sand, and the name itself, Arabic for "fifty," refers to the roughly fifty-day span of the spring season during which such windstorms are most frequent.
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