Les Deux Mistrals

There are two Mistrals in France (in actuality I'm certain there are many more but these are the only two of which I know).

Mistral N° 1:
Frédéric Mistral (born 1830) was a French writer and lexicographer who is primarily known for his efforts to revive and disseminate the Provençal dialect. For those of you who aren't aware (and trust me, I didn't learn this until pathetically recently), French has not always been this country's central language. Provençal, a dialect of Occitan, is spoken primarily in Southern France and is rooted in the Romance and Gallo-Romance language families. It is also the name given to the older version of the langue d'oc used by the troubadours of medieval literature. Mistral, as you would have it, also studied law at a school here in Aix-en-Provence. Thank you Wikipedia.

As informative as this all is, it is Mistral N° 2 which I would like to discuss tonight.

Mistral N° 2:
Le Mistral is a strong French wind that blows from the North and North West. As French Wikipedia states, it is strong, dry, and can reach speeds of up to 62 miles per hour! I don't think this is an entirely complete description.

Le Mistral is a wind that hurls glass jars across parking lots, rips small infants from the arms of their stunned mothers, and threatens in an instant to undress you. It is a wind that offers no mercy to persnickety umbrellas, bare hands, or carelessly closed shutters. Even at this minute I can hear it heaving itself against my window pane, insisting entrance. When I first arrived I was somewhat confused why my host mother insisted that I close the shutters of my window every evening. Shutters, how quaint, I thought. Several nights later I as was walking home in the dark, it all became clear to me. Or rather, it would have had my eyes not been streaming from the fury of an unseen but all too fully felt blast. But it's true, there are shutters on nearly all the homes and apartments here. Not simply the purely decorative and thus completely useless ones you see in the states (ironwork shutters, really?) but ones that have worked for years to keep out a force more persistent than gym sales reps. And so here I am, only miles from the Mediterranean Sea, wondering if this winter wind will ever cease blowing.

How's the weather in your part of the world?