If you live or have lived in West Africa, you know what harmattan is. If you don't know, harmattan is a “cold, dry, and dusty trade wind1 that blows over the West African subcontinent.” The harmattan season starts in Mid-November and ends in Late-March.

Harmattan is also known as the dry season. During this season, we record the lowest amount of rainfall in the year as a result of the Northeasterly Wind blowing from the Sahara into the Gulf of Guinea2 .

The harmattan is characterised by chilly mornings and hot afternoons. If you want a perfect tan, take a flight to any West African country. Sit on the beach once and voila! You have the perfect tan.

In Nigeria, we have different vegetations3: the Sahel, Sudan, Guinea Savannah, Tropical Rainforest, and the Mangrove Swamp. Vegetation influences rainfall, temperature, and humidity of a place. Taking this into cognisance, you can deduce that different parts of Nigeria will not experience harmattan the same way. Experiencing harmattan in Lagos, which is located along the coast of the Atlantic in South Western Nigeria, is different from the experience in Kano, located in Northern Nigeria. Harmattan in Lagos is like blowing air on your skin with your mouth. Kano is like the North Pole... chilly.

In Lagos, the mornings are hazy and cold while the afternoons are hot and dry and dusty, not hazy. The haze clears as the day progresses. This isn't the case with other parts of Nigeria. Sometimes, it gets hazy.

Bathing in the morning is a chore. The hot water mocks you saying, “Weak mortal, let me watch you bath!” I observed something as a teenager. Bathing with hot water heightened the cold. Conversely, bathing with cold water made the cold disappear. It was later, as a physics student, I understood that it was just thermal adaptation. Bathing with cold water makes our body get used to the cold...

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