Horribly Haboobed!

Ok, so I've never seen anything quite like this. Or at least not from this angle. (If I had, I would have taken several dozen pictures of my own.) This photo, however, was taken in my current neighborhood in Khartoum, and the haboobs I've experienced have been quite an interesting experience. The season seems to be more of less over. April was definitely the most active month. But there may still be a few to come.

I find that the haboobs tend to sneak up on you. Sure, they're preceded by a fair amount of wind, but when you see that large cloud of dust approaching, you don't have that much time to take cover (assuming you choose to take cover. It seems that the locals react only to the largest of haboobs.) At the same time, it's quite different from what you see in the movies. This isn't The Mummy. When I say not much time, I mean maybe 10 minutes, not 10 seconds.

Unfortunately, the most impressive haboobs I've experienced in Khartoum all occured at night. Thus, rather than seeing them, I just heard them; heard the gusting wind, the rattling windows, the sand hitting the metal roof on my building. And then of course I saw the aftermath the next morning, particularly the thin layer of red sand covering everything in my apartment despite the fact that all the doors and windows were closed during the haboob.

One of these nighttime haboobs, however, was more impressive than the rest. I was successfully awaken around 5 in the morning by the sound not only of wind but also, rain (commonly accompanies haboobs), thunder, and lightning. And it was an awful good thing that I was was. Because not long after I woke up, I began to feel large gusts of wind blowing in my direction. And as I was certain that I had not left any of the windows open, that did not seem normal. For a while I ignored it and stayed in bed. But then I happened to notice that the curtain on one of the windows on the other side of room was blowing out of control. Something was clearly wrong.

So, I got out of bed and made my way across the room in the dark. And it's a good thing I did. I discovered that the glass, which had simply been glued into the window frame, had become detached on three of four sides and was blowing back and forth in the frame. So, before it could blow out entirely and shatter into a million pieces, I grabbed the glass, pulled it out of the frame, set it aside, and went back to bed.

This, however, meant that I now had an open window. And, I can tell you, an open window in a haboob is not a good thing. Thus, unsurprisingly, by the time the haboob stopped, that corner of the apartment was covered in a layer of wet sand. And, I had to wait an entire week for the glass to be replaced, which meant needing to mop up sand every day during that week!

Although far less dramatic, it is also worth noting that that one night of rain succeeded in completely flooding one of the streets near my apartment building. In fact, it was largely impassable by foot for the better part of a week.