UPPSC 2019 Prelims GS Paper-I · Question 45 of 150

Correct — D, Mistral — Australia is the pair that is NOT correctly matched. The Mistral is a European wind, not an Australian one: it is a cold, dry, often violent north-to-north-westerly that funnels down the Rhône valley in southern France, squeezed between the Massif Central and the Alps, and bursts out over the Gulf of Lion in the north-western Mediterranean. It brings clear skies with sharp drops in temperature and can batter the orchards and vineyards of Provence. Australia's own local winds carry quite different names — the hot northerly Brickfielder and the cool 'Southerly Buster' that follows it. Since the question asks for the WRONGLY matched pair, this is the answer.

• (a)Santa Ana — California — This pair is correct, so it cannot be the answer. The Santa Ana is a hot, dry, dust-laden offshore wind that descends from the interior deserts through the mountain passes of southern California, warming as it sinks — the wind notorious for fanning Californian wildfires.
• (b)Haboob — Sudan — Also correctly matched. The haboob is the intense dust-and-sand storm wind of Sudan, especially around Khartoum, and of the surrounding Saharan margin; the name comes from the Arabic root meaning 'to blow'.
• (c)Yamo — Japan — This is the pairing the standard local-wind tables used by Indian exam syllabi give — Yamo as a hot wind of Japan — so it is not the mismatch being sought. Even if the term is unfamiliar to you, option (d) is decisively wrong, and in a 'which is NOT matched' question one certain error beats three uncertainties.

Local (or regional) winds are short-lived air movements produced by local differences in pressure, relief and heating rather than by the planetary circulation. They fall into recognisable families: hot dry desert winds carrying dust (Haboob, Sirocco, Khamsin, Loo, Harmattan, Brickfielder), warm descending leeward winds of the föhn type that are dried and heated by compression as they sink (Föhn in the Alps, Chinook in the Rockies, Santa Ana in California, Zonda in Argentina), and cold winds that drain from a high, cold interior to a warmer sea (Mistral in the Rhône valley, Bora on the Adriatic).

In a 'NOT correctly matched' question the fastest route is not to verify every pair but to find the one you can positively refute. The Mistral belongs to a set of European names — Mistral, Bora, Föhn, Sirocco, Tramontana — every one of which is Mediterranean or Alpine, so 'Australia' is at once implausible. It also fails the physical test: a Mistral needs a cold continental interior draining through a narrow valley to a warm sea, the classic Rhône-to-Gulf-of-Lion setting, not Australian conditions. Note in passing that the paper heads the second column 'Country' but then lists California — a US state; that looseness is the paper's, not a clue.

• Mistral: a cold, dry, strong north/north-westerly of southern France, channelled down the Rhône valley to the Gulf of Lion; it clears the sky and sends temperatures tumbling.
• Santa Ana: hot, dry, dusty offshore wind of southern California, blowing from the interior deserts through mountain passes — infamous for spreading wildfires.
• Haboob: dust-storm wind of Sudan and the neighbouring Sahara, from the Arabic habb, 'to blow'; the name is also used for dust storms in Arizona.
• Australia's local winds are the Brickfielder (hot, dry northerly off the interior) and the Southerly Buster (the cool southerly change that follows it).
• Other exam-standard pairs: Föhn — Alps; Chinook — Rocky Mountains (North America); Zonda — Argentina; Bora — Adriatic coast; Sirocco — Mediterranean from the Sahara; Loo — northern India; Harmattan — West Africa; Shamal — Iraq and the Persian Gulf.

• Answering the wrongly matched option's PARTNER. In a 'NOT correctly matched' question the answer is the incorrect pair, not the correct information — mark (d) here, not France.
• Mixing up Mistral and Sirocco: both are Mediterranean, but the Mistral is cold and blows from the north, while the Sirocco is hot and blows from the Sahara towards the north.
• Assuming a wind name that sounds exotic must belong to a distant continent — Bora, Mistral and Tramontana all sound unfamiliar and are all European.

Local winds are asked in three formats — a match-list of wind against region, a 'which pair is NOT correctly matched' item like this, and a one-line definition ('The Chinook is...'). UPPSC has used the mismatch format repeatedly, including in 2021.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Mistral wind is associated with which one of the following valleys?

  • (a)Rhine valley
  • (b)Rhône valley
  • (c)Danube valley
  • (d)Po valley

  Answer(b) Rhône valley — the Mistral funnels down the Rhône between the Massif Central and the Alps and blows out over the Gulf of Lion.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which one of the following is a hot, dry local wind of Australia?

  • (a)Brickfielder
  • (b)Chinook
  • (c)Bora
  • (d)Khamsin

  Answer(a) Brickfielder — the hot northerly blowing off the Australian interior; Chinook belongs to the Rockies, Bora to the Adriatic and Khamsin to Egypt.