Foehn

The foehn and the sun must have awakened the spirits of spring way up in the heights.

The foehns of the northern Alps are world-renowned for the formation of thermal belts on the alp terraces above the deep, U-shaped, glaciated valleys. Here the foehn phenomenon was first identified and the German word for "fall" or "descent" applied to it.

The foehn, I learned, was first recorded in the Alps but is found all over the world. The Santa Anas contain the occasional foehn, nicknamed “murder winds” and immortalized in Joan Didion's 1965 essay “Los Angeles Notebook"

This is particularly noticeable in Foehn winds—warm winds that descend from mountainous areas down to areas of lower elevation. Wind patterns considered Foehn include the dry southerly wind blowing through the Alps, Switzerland and across southern Germany. The Sharav or Hamsin winds blowing through the desert in the Middle East are also Foehn winds. The Sirocco winds that blow through Italy and the Mistral winds that blow through southern France are both considered Foehns.