By WEATHER WORLD on Feb 17, 2012, at 4:49 PM Updated on 2/17 at 4:49 PM
WEATHER WORLD
At the cookout I went to Sunday evening, it was tank top, cutoff jean shorts and flip flops. My friend said to me, “you look ...
This blog was inspired by some of our early morning commenters on the weather forecast story .
Yes, as one of you pointed ...
The deluge earlier this month was exciting. For a second, I though that maybe the near-record parched May was just a fluke ...
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
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