Day 1 of a Southern California visit.

Almost as warm as Abu Dhabi.

Not nearly as wet.

Abu Dhabi doesn’t do dry days.

Southern California often does.

The infamous Santa Ana winds are blowing.

The winds come from the interior of the country, from the deserts of Nevada and Arizona, and they are warm and dry. Really dry.

If a person spends most of five years in an environment that is often very hot, and almost always quite humid (hello, Abu Dhabi) … dry air is somewhat shocking.

“It’s a dry heat” is a good thing. If the temperature is 95 degrees, it might well have a “feels like” temp of 90.

(As opposed to the UAE, where it can be 95 and “feel like” 110, because of the humidity.

But it takes a while to become accustomed again to dry heat.

You feel it in your cuticles. On your forehead. Your elbows.

Static electricity can build up. You touch something metal, and get a slight shock.

The warm wind makes some people feel twitchy. Edgy. Crime literature set in SoCal nearly always suggests violent crime goes up during Santa Anas.

The ultimate example of adjusting to dry air … is the spontaneous nose bleed. Noses dry out inside, too.

I wouldn’t mind another week of this; clear, warm, dry. It’s Thanksgiving weather, from my youth.