AtDtDA23: When the Favogn Blew In

[Dave Monroe]

"Reef should have known what was coming when the favogn blew in."
(AtD, Pt. III, p. 656)


favogn

favogn—A foehn of the Swiss Alps.

http://amsglossary.allenpress.com/glossary/search?id=favogn1

foehn—(Or föhn.) A warm, dry, downslope wind descending the lee side
of the Alps as a result of synoptic-scale, cross-barrier flow over the
mountain range.

The winds are often strong and gusty, sometimes forming downslope
windstorms as a result of mountain wave activity. The air in the
near-surface flow originates at or above the main crest height of the
Alpine barrier, and achieves its warmth and dryness as a result of
adiabatic descent. The foehn often replaces a retreating cold air mass
from a polar or arctic front, producing dramatic temperature rises
that reach 10°C and occasionally even 20°C or more, sometimes in a
matter of minutes. This is especially true of the south foehn, which
blows from northern Italy, where the air is warm, to the north of the
Alps (Austria, Germany, Switzerland), where the air is cooler and
could be cold arctic air as just described. The north foehn, blowing
from a cooler to a warmer region, produces less dramatic temperature
changes. The air in the foehn, originating from the mid troposphere,
is characteristically clean. Its warm temperatures rapidly melt (or
sublimate) snow, sometimes producing flooding, and the extreme dryness
can lead to dangerous fire weather conditions. The Alpine foehn has
been extensively studied by European scientists, and it is recognized
as the type wind for similar downslope winds, resulting from
cross-barrier flow, in other parts of the world. In other mountain
ranges the foehn has a variety of local names, including chinook in
the Rocky Mountains in North America; zonda for a westerly foehn from
the Argentine Andes; ljuka in Carthinia (northwestern Croatia); halny
wiatr in Poland; austru in Romania; and favogn in Switzerland. A
northeasterly foehn descending the Massif Central in France and
extending over the Garonne Plain is locally called aspre. A dry wind
from the northwest descending the coastal hills in Majorca is named
the sky sweeper. In New Zealand a foehn blowing from the New Zealand
Alps onto the Canterbury Plains is the Canterbury northwester. A
cross- barrier flow that produces strong winds and cooling is called a
bora in many parts of the world. Many authors have attempted to
classify strong wind events as foehn (or chinook) or bora, for
example, for climatologies. These studies have had mixed success: Many
wind events are easy to classify, but a number of events are
difficult, depending on the data available (most studies attempt to
use surface data) and the method used to differentiate between the two
types of events. See foehn phase, high foehn.

Defant, F., 1951: Compendium of Meteorology, 667–669.

http://amsglossary.allenpress.com/glossary/search?id=foehn1

Cf., e.g., ...

"the southerly wind." (AtD, Pt. I, Ch.1, p. 3)

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0701&msg=114267

"wind"

http://books.google.com/books?id=jqS2pmUIfOAC

maijstral
311; Majjistral is Maltese for "north-west or the north-west wind"

http://www.hyperarts.com/pynchon/v/alpha/m.html

"Wind is clearly an important symbol for Pynchon. In the first glimpse
of the 'other side' we see, the spirit at the seance talks about 'the
wind' (34), and the mysterious superhero Sundial came from 'across the
wind.' (550)"

http://completelyfutile.blogspot.com/2005_02_01_completelyfutile_archive.html


sirocco

sirocco—(Also spelled scirocco.) A warm south or southeast wind in
advance of a depression moving eastward across the southern
Mediterranean Sea or North Africa.

The air comes from the Sahara (as a desert wind) and is dry and dusty,
but the term is not used in North Africa, where it is called chom
(hot) or arifi (thirsty). In crossing the Mediterranean the sirocco
picks up much moisture because of its high temperature, and reaches
Malta, Sicily, and southern Italy as a very enervating, hot, humid
wind. As it travels northward, it causes fog and rain. In some parts
of the Mediterranean region the word may be used for any warm
southerly wind, often of foehn type. In the extreme southwest of
Greece a warm foehn crossing the coastal mountains is named sirocco di
levante. There are a number of local variants of the spelling such as
xaroco (Portuguese), jaloque or xaloque (Spanish), xaloc or xaloch
(Catalonian). In the Rhône delta the warm rainy southeast sirocco is
called eissero. On Zakynthos Island it is called lampaditsa. See
solano, ghibli, chili, simoom, leveche, marin.

http://amsglossary.allenpress.com/glossary/search?p=1&query=sirocco


"dynamic compression and adiabatic gradients"

In thermodynamics, an adiabatic process or an isocaloric process is a
thermodynamic process in which no heat is transferred to or from the
working fluid. The term "adiabatic" literally means impassable (from
Greek ἀ-διὰ-βαῖνειν, "ah-theeah-vainaein," not-through-to pass) ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adiabatic_process

A physical system remains in its instantaneous eigenstate if a given
perturbation is acting on it slowly enough and if there is a gap
between the eigenvalue and the rest of the Hamiltonian's spectrum.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adiabatic_process_%28quantum_mechanics%29

In quantum mechanics, the Hamiltonian H is the observable
corresponding to the total energy of the system....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamiltonian_%28quantum_mechanics%29

Hamilton, Sir William Rowan (1805-1865)

http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=H#hamilton


balneomaniacs

balneo-, balne- +
(Greek > Latin: bath, bathing; wash, washing)

bagnio, bagnios
1. A brothel.
2. An old term for a prison for slaves in Asian countries.
3. A former term for a public bathhouse in Italy or Turkey.
4. From Italian bagno, "bath", from Latin balneum, which came from
Greek balaneion.
balaneutics
Balneology; the science of baths or bathing, especially the study of
the therapeutic use of mineral baths.

[...]

balneological
Of or pertaining to balneology.
balneologist
1. A specialist or expert in balneology.
2. Someone who practices in the profession of balneotherapy.
balneology
1. The scientific medical study of bathing and medicinal springs.
2. The use of hot spring mineral water for healing or therapeutic purposes.
This is considered to be the oldest historic use of natural geothermal waters.
balneophile, balneophilist
A collector of pictures of bathing girls or a fondness for collecting
pictures of girls in swimsuits.

http://wordinfo.info/words/index/info/view_unit/278/?letter=B&spage=1

balneotherapeutics
Treatments of variouis ailments and diseases with the use of mineral,
thermo, and other kinds of baths.
balneotherapy, balneotherapeutic
1. Medical treatment of a disease with baths or medicinal springs.
2. Immersion of part or all of the body in a mineral water bath as a
form of therapy.
3. The treatment of diseases, injuries, and other physical ailments
with baths and bathing; especially, in natural mineral waters.
Balneotherapy involves the treatment of diseases by bathing. It may
involve hot or cold water, massage via moving water, relaxation or
stimulation. Many mineral waters at spas are rich in particular
minerals (silica, sulfur, selenium, radium) which can be absorbed via
the skin.

The term balneotherapy has gradually come to be applied to everything
relating to health-spa treatment, including the drinking of waters and
the use of hot baths and natural vapor baths, as well as of the
various kinds of mud and sand used for hot applications.

[...]

http://wordinfo.info/words/index/info/view_unit/278/2/?spage=1&letter=B

People avid for mineral baths and spas like those at ...

Baden-Baden ... Wagga Wagga

In Germany and New South Wales (Australia) respectively. Names, of
course, which suggest bilocation.

http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_644-677#Page_656


"Moazagotl clouds"

Moazagotl—A stationary bank of cirriform cloud marking the upper
portion of the system of lenticular clouds formed in the lee wave
produced by flow across the Sudeten Mountains in southeastern Germany;
a type of foehn cloud.

The Moazagotl reaches its maximum development in the colder months,
but especially in the autumn. It usually occurs when the air is
conditionally unstable and wind speeds exceed certain critical values.
Compare Bishop wave, chinook arch.

Hewson, E. W., and R. W. Longley, 1951: Meteorology, Theoretical and
Applied, 449–450.

http://amsglossary.allenpress.com/glossary/search?id=moazagotl1