SIMOOM, sr-motim', SIMOON, or SA MUN (Arabic, summa, °hoe and a noxious hot wind which blows at the period of the equinoxes in most countries bordering on sandy deserts, especially in certain parts of Asia and Africa, where its temperature has been 1mown to reach as high as 130°. The intense and parching heat, resembling that of an oven, is derived from the hot sands, which, in the deserts of Africa and Arabia, often be come heated for a depth of some inches to 200° F. This hot sand is whirled up from the earth by the advancing wind, and the whole air is filled with an extremely subtle and penetrat ing dust, the effect of which, if breathed freely, is to induce suffocation. The approach of the simoom is heralded by a thin haze along the horizon, which rapidly becomes more and more dense, till it covers the whole face of the heavens. This is followed by fierce gusts of wind, accompanied with clouds of red and burning sand, which are whirled round in rapid gyrations, and so swept onward. Sometimes whole caravans are buried in the masses of sand thus carried along. The simoom generally
lasts from 6 to 12 hours and sometimes longer. When the wind blows in squalls death is often very suddenly produced by actual suffocation, and is followed by bleeding at the nose and mouth. Persons exposed to it protect them selves by stopping the mouth and nose with handkerchiefs, and the camels instinctively bury their noses in the sand at its approach. The effects of the simoom are felt in the south of Europe, the hot wind produced in Italy being called the sirocco. In Turkey this wind is called the in Guinea and Senegambia a similar wind is called Winds of similar origin and nature exist in Australia and parts of North and South America. In the southeast of Spain a similar wind is known as the solano; while the krusin, which gener ally last for 50 days to two months, blows from the northeast across Egypt. See HARMATTAN ; SIROCCO and SOLANO.