News - Blogs - The fog blog

The fog blog
Published: 2/17/2012 4:49 PM
Last Modified: 2/17/2012 4:49 PM

Canada geese in a foggy field Tuesday in Owasso. MIKE SIMONS/Tulsa World

Fog fills the downtown Tulsa skyline on Tuesday. CORY YOUNG/Tulsa World

This week, Tulsa has had snow, rain, temperatures in the teens and the 50s and even fog.

In case you missed it (photos to the right if you did), Tuesday morning, one day after Tulsa got more than an inch of snow, Tulsa was covered in a thick layer of fog.

With a word that sounds so similar to the word "blog," I could resist blogging on Tulsa's fogging. Here's some information from Tulsa National Weather Service meteorologist Karen Hatfield:

Q: How common is fog in the Tulsa area?

Hatfield: Overall, fog, especially dense fog, is a pretty rare event. It most often happens during the cool season, but that is still less than 1 percent of the time.

Q: Does fog usually follow or precede any other events?

Hatfield: We often get fog around here after a snow when it begins to melt or after a heavy rain because both are responsible for putting a lot of water vapor into the low levels of the atmosphere.

Under most (but not all) circumstances, fog around here forms after an event because of the above, but also because we often get high pressure behind the system that caused the event, leading to light winds and clear skies for optimum radiation.

Q: If I remember photos from last year, "freezing fog" appears more a crystalized flakes in the air. Is that an accurate description? Is it basically fog when the temperatures are below freezing?

Hatfield: Freezing fog is just fog that forms when surface temperatures are below freezing, leading to a glaze of ice on exposed surfaces - especially bridges and overpasses. It doesn't normally materialize as flakes, though.

Wonder what I was asking about? Here's the article and here's a photo:

Our photo editor, Christopher Smith, had captured eery ice crystals floating in the air and I actually called up the weather service to find out if was indeed freezing fog. Pete Snyder, another Tulsa weather service meteorologist, mentioned both freezing fog and rime icing. Cool!

Hatfield noted that there are also other types of fog, from radiation fog to advection fog. More information on types of fog can be found here.

Of course, that NOAA site, and forecasters everywhere, will remind you that all types of fog are weather events not to be taken lightly if you're driving. Slow down, and please, remember to turn on your headlights so that I can see your light-gray fog-colored car.

--Althea Peterson

Reader Comments

Show: Newest First

Learn About Our Comment Policy

To post comments on tulsaworld.com, you must be an active Tulsa World print or digital subscriber and signed into your account.

To sign in to your account, go to tulsaworld.com/signin.
To activate your print subscription for unlimited digital access and to post comments, go to tulsaworld.com/activate.
To purchase a subscription, go to tulsaworld.com/subscribe.

Almanac

Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun
Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec

	Temperature		Precipitation
Date	High Temp	Low Temp	Total	Month to date	Historical average
1	44°	16°	0	0.00	0.05
2	59°	24°	0	0.00	0.11
3	57°	33°	0	0.00	0.16
4	68°	37°	Trace	0.00	0.21
5	69°	29°	0	0.00	0.26
6	66°	33°	0	0.00	0.32
7	59°	38°	0.05	0.05	0.38
8	51°	34°	0	0.05	0.44
9	44°	36°	0.01	0.06	0.51
10	62°	37°	0.07	0.13	0.57
11	54°	28°	0	0.13	0.64
12	44°	30°	0.25	0.38	0.70
13	55°	40°	0.01	0.39	0.76
14	°	°			0.83
15	°	°			0.89
16	°	°			0.95
17	°	°			1.02
18	°	°			1.09
19	°	°			1.16
20	°	°			1.23
21	°	°			1.31
22	°	°			1.38
23	°	°			1.46
24	°	°			1.53
25	°	°			1.61
26	°	°			1.69
27	°	°			1.77
28	°	°			1.85

TEMPERATURE

RAINFALL

SNOWFALL

Weather World

Follow Jerry Wofford on Twitter for updates during severe weather conditions.

Tulsa weather milestones of 2013 (as of Feb. 12)

Highest temperature: 70 on Jan. 11 (Record: 115 on Aug. 15, 1936)
Lowest temperature: 15 on Jan. 16 (Record: Minus-16 on Jan. 22, 1930)
Hottest month (average): 40.5 degrees in January (Record: 91.7 degrees on July 1980)
Coldest month (average): 40. 5 degrees in January (Record: 21.7 in January 1918)
Most snowfall (day): 0.1 of an inch on Feb. 12(Record: 13.2 inches on Feb. 1, 2011)
Most snowfall (month): 0.1 of an inch in February(Record: 22.5 inches in February 2011)
Most rainfall (day): 0.91 of an inch on Jan. 29 (Record: 9.27 inches on May 26-27, 1984)
Most rainfall (month): 1.54 of an inch in January (Record: 18.18 inches on September 1971)
Highest wind speed: 30 mph on Jan. 30
Previous day with any rain: Feb. 12
Previous day with 1 inch or more of rain: Oct. 17, 2012
Previous day with any snow: Feb. 12
Previous day with freezing temperatures: Feb. 12
Read regular updates on Oklahoma's unpredictable weather and learn more about meteorology from the Tulsa office of the National Weather Service.

>> Visit the main weather page
>> Send us your weather photos
>> Meet the forecasters

Contributors
Staff Writer Althea Peterson started writing for the Tulsa World in March 2007 after previous stops at the Norman Transcript in 2006 and the Oklahoma Gazette in 2005. She followed her older brother from rural Wisconsin (with a public school that never seemed to call snow days) to the University of Oklahoma, but did not follow his pursuit to study meteorology. However, she tries to find as many opportunities to report on the weather as possible.

Staff Writer Jerry Wofford came to the Tulsa World in 2010 from The Manhattan Mercury in Manhattan, Kan. Originally from western Arkansas and a graduate of the University of Oklahoma, Jerry has lived in Tornado Alley his entire life and is one of those people who goes outside when the sirens go off.

Subscribe to this blog

Temperature
High Temp:	(Example: 45)
Low Temp:	(Example: 45)
Temperature Date:	(Example: 1/1/2011)

Precipitation
Total:	(Example: '.01)
Month to date:	(Example: '.01)
Normal month to date:	(Example: '.01)

2/2013	1/2013	12/2012	11/2012	10/2012	9/2012
8/2012	7/2012	6/2012	5/2012	4/2012	3/2012
2/2012	1/2012	12/2011	11/2011	10/2011	9/2011
8/2011	7/2011	6/2011

Your bookmark will appear on your Profile page. Please give it a title, and short description so that visitors to your page will understand where the bookmark leads.
Bookmark Title :

Bookmark Text :