I'm officially weirded out now

[Randall]

Freaky weather around here. I've never seen fog do stuff like that.

Driving home on the highway I hit a clump of fog that was gone before I realized what happened. Thought someone's car had blown up and left nothing but a cloud of exhaust behind.

But then it was happening again and again. You're in the clear, and two feet later you can't see the road. Then it's gone again.

By the time I got off the highway and headed up and over the hills near where I live, it was infinitely worse. There's a wind blowing, so you could watch the fog washing over you. Lots more of the impenetrable moments than the clear ones. Looked like a ghost of the tsunami... Sitting here, I'm still imagining wisps of it floating between me and the monitor.

I'd better go eat something before I start hallucinating Wasser's avatar, or something even worse.

Randall

[Chipmunk]

LOL! I feel your pain!

If it helps any, this week I heard a new-to-me weather term (and I'm a Weather Geek, so it's the first new one I've heard in a couple of decades):

freezing fog

Fortunately, I've been safely holed up on my hill for several days now.

Drive carefully, and be safe, y'all!

[Wassercrats]

I saw patches of dence fog like that a few hours ago. A long line of it was south of me, and was moving quickly eastward. I've seen that type fog before, but not often.

Cheese balls, cheese balls, rolly polly cheese balls
Cheese balls, cheese balls, eat 'em up, yum!

[Randall]

I have yet to see a cheese ball roll anywhere, foggy weather or no.

In Hawaii I learned some new weather words, vog and something else that I can't remember at the moment. Too traumatized, I guess.

Randall

[Randall]

Oh, yeah -- the other word was laze.

When a volcanic erupts, sulfur dioxide within the molten rock is converted to sulfuric acid. The resulting plume is known as vog (volcanic fog).

Gases are also produced at the ocean. When the lava enters the ocean, hydochloric acid is produced - called laze (lava haze). Both of these gases can contain particulate matter, such as volcanic glass or trace metals.

Randall

[Dunx]

Patchy fog, freezing fog... now you mention it, I haven't seen either of those since I moved to Oregon. Not that I miss them.

When I was living in Nottingham I found out that the valley which Nottingham sits in is weirdly subject to fog. You'll be tootling down the M1 quite merrily until you reach Nottingham and you're driving through dense fog for fifteen miles. I remember one winter when some freezing fog rolled in to sit on top of Nottingham and it didn't dissipate for two weeks - two weeks! Two weeks of cycling to work and having a crust of ice on my front.

So, Chipmunk, sorry to hear you've been introduced to freezing fog. It's no fun. Randall ditto with the patchy fog.

Mind you, living in Portland we occasionally get freezing rain, and that's something new I wish I didn't know about.

[Andilinks]

Don't be weirded out. Fog is great. Fog shine is my favorite weather.

I especially miss the fog shine that rolls through the Golden Gate on a regular though not scheduled basis. It never freezes.

[Randall]

Fog in the daytime is cool. Fog at night, when you're trying to get home in one piece, is not so cool.

It's still out there -- I can watch it blowing across the parking lot. And I think I've got it figured out.

When the wind dies down enough, fog starts developing over the snow. Builds up very quickly. Then the wind comes through again and blows it all away. Now I know why it looked like waves rolling over the road. Without the wind, it would stay where the snow is.

I wonder if this really qualifies as fog, or if it's something else altogether.

Mind you, living in Portland we occasionally get freezing rain, and that's something new I wish I didn't know about.

Very familiar with that out here. It's kind of cool when you get into your car and see this layer of ice over the windows. One time I rolled down the window -- the ice stayed up -- and waited until someone came near the car. Then I punched my arm through the ice and scared the bejeesus out of them.

Randall

[DogAndPony]

Originally Posted by Dunx

Patchy fog, freezing fog... now you mention it, I haven't seen either of those since I moved to Oregon. Not that I miss them.

When I was living in Nottingham I found out that the valley which Nottingham sits in is weirdly subject to fog. You'll be tootling down the M1 quite merrily until you reach Nottingham and you're driving through dense fog for fifteen miles.

My only experience with ice fog / freezing fog was during a train trip from London up to Edinburgh one winter... first time I'd made that trip. As the train rolls north through England, the consistent yellow-orange glow of the sulphur-vapor lights on the highway -- oops... carriageway -- is strange to someone from America who's used to greenish or bluish street lighting.

Then, farther north, the ice fog appears... out in the countryside, after the M1's no longer visible from the tracks. With a clear sky and a full moon, the fog is an amazing, glowing blue layer -- only a few feet high -- along the gently rolling ground... Soo eerie and beautiful...

And the CDs playing in my headphones added to the mood (purposely programmed for the trip)... English girl-next-door folk-rock [edit: or maybe not folk-rock, but folk-influenced indie rock, with ties to groups like Cocteau Twins (another of my faves at the time)]: Sundays: "Reading, Writing and Arithmetic", followed by a dose of sweet Celtic melancholy with Loreena McKennitt: "The Mask and Mirror"...

Can't listen to either one of those CDs without seeing that blue glowing blanket...

*sigh*

Methinks it may be time to save up for a trip...

...Bob

Bob West

[Randall]

Last edited by DogAndPony : Today at 02:03 AM. Reason: genre definition

Yes yes, we must keep our genres well defined.

It didn't help that my MP3 player started playing songs of the, uh, atmospheric variety just as I was hitting the fog zone.

By the time it segued back into pop territory, I was already so weirded out that George Gershwin would have spooked me.

Maybe not so odd, given the fact that he's dead...

Randall