New Year is still lingering around like a honey bee in search of nectar and so is South-West Monsoon Winds which originates from some parts of Asia blows through the South-West part of the continent through to some parts of the Western Side of Africa, of which my country Ghana is unfortunately a part of. Some of you might wonder why I used the word “unfortunately” in that part of the sentence and I will explain in the continuing paragraphs.

This winds are not friendly at all and this year something weird is happening with it through some studies and observations I have made through research and studying. This winds are characterized by fine dust particles. These particles are fine in such a way that they are not visible to the naked eyes. This particular feature of the winds, make breathing extremely difficult and painful. It comes with some diseases such as flu, influenza, and headaches. The wind (air) is so dried that it increases humidity and hence any living thing in its presence suffers a massive loss of water through transpiration and evaporation (through breathing and excretion). Due to the massive loss of water encountered by living things which includes human beings, the outer covering of the body (skin) is always dried if water is not cautiously taken in at short intervals of about a glass of water to 45 minutes. The water loss through metabolism is therefore replaced regularly.

Due to the light weight of the dust particles and their movement in large quantities, a factor of coldness is also a major problem associated with these winds. It does not snow here but I can relate this coldness to snowing because even if you bath under a warm shower, then 30 seconds you are already feeling cold with a massive temperature drop from the normal body temperature to about 5˚C. The only way to prevent this is to get your jackets ready before a bath. After a warm bath you put on the jacket to grasp some warmth from it. 

The wind is accompanied by high pressure and this makes it very difficult to drive around whether in the early morning or late afternoon, and this conditions deteriorates in the evening. Vehicles always have to put on their headlights when moving about to safely reach their destination. Flights and other complex forms of transportation are brought to an abrupt halt.  

There is one good thing I have observed however, and that is; You do not need a drier when these winds come. Due the massive increase in humidity, when you wash and hang it on the dry line, within an hour your dress is ready and super dried. I think companies that dry their staffs with electricity could find a better way of utilising the South-West monsoon winds by filtering out the fine dust and taking advantage of the massive humidity the winds bring to dry their staffs and conserve energy.

They were expected to hit Africa somewhere between November 2019 and February 2020 (which is usually its main months of striking for a long time now) but for the whole of November to December 2019, no sign of the winds showed up. I was wondering it was over till the first day of the new year, I woke up to greeted by dry air, dried skin and a cold temperature that I cannot describe. The first question that flew in my mind was; “Could Climate Change be messing around with the season of this monsoon winds?” This is a question I wish to answer one of this days of studying, researching and experimenting.

We call it the Harmattan Season down here in Ghana, Happy New Year to you all.

Green Cheers from Ghana