Tramontane

The word came to English from Italian tramontana, which developed from Latin trānsmontānus (trāns- + montānus), "beyond/across the mountains",[1][2][3] referring to the Alps in the North of Italy.

[4] On the Croatian Adriatic coast it is called tramontana (pronounced tramòntāna, [tramǒntaːna] in Dalmatia), with a number of local variations (termuntana, trmuntana, t(a)rmuntona and others).

[5][6][7] The tramontane [tʁa.mɔ̃.tan] in France is a strong, dry cold wind from the north (on the Mediterranean) or from the northwest (in lower Languedoc, Roussillon, Catalonia and the Balearic Islands).

In his poem "Gastibelza", Victor Hugo has the main character say, "Le vent qui vient à travers la montagne me rendra fou..." (The wind coming over the mountain will drive me mad...) In Greece, tramountána (Greek: Τραμουντάνα) [tramuˈdana] is used as a nautical term to define not only the northern wind, but also the northern direction and even the cardinal point of north on a compass.

It is caused by a weather system from the west following a depression on the Mediterranean, due to the minimum baric level in the Ligurian Sea between Genoa and Corsica, which recalls strong winds.

This last case is called in Liguria "dark Tramontane" (Tramontana Scura), which in Liguria is activated following the invortication of the perturbations coming from the west (or even south-west or north-west) on the Ligurian Sea; for this reason a proverb in the Ligurian language states: "tramuntann-a scüa, ægua següa" ("dark north wind, sure rain").

In Slovenia a word tramontana [tɾamɔnˈtáːna] is used for a strong northerly, often hurricane-force wind that blows from the Alps to the Venice bay over Trieste, Slovenian coast and Istria with gusts sometimes as high as 200 km/h (usually 80 km/h).