August was all about fog

Here's a satellite image of how it rolls in overnight, fills the bay, gets over some of the hills.

Below: Taken at Marin Headlands, looking SW.

The fog can't quite get over the 1000 ft. hills, but it can sneak in at sea level,

the Golden Gate is to the left.

http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/fog-San-Francisco-Bay-Area-Outside-Lands-weather-11748551.php#photo-13671134

A few days it backed off, we got some nice relief.

It almost looked like it might rain... but no such luck.

Weather out west is largely tied to elevation, and it's effect

on whatever is coming in off the ocean.

Hills and mountains squeeze the air mass.

It snows at higher elevation, it rains lower down.

The peaks of mountains surrounding Death Valley are always snow covered.

At the bottom of the valley, it can be hotter than hell. Literally.

Shot from Dante's view, looking NW at sunrise.

But not always - there' been a very persistent hi pressure system

in the four corners area, when it expands westward, 

the natural air conditioning of fog stops working. Like now:

What will fall bring us? Ocean currents creating fog start to shift, fog backs off, September

and October can be the hottest months here at the coast.

I'll be sittin' here in front of my Mac, in boxer shorts, 

Canon Powershot at the ready.

Who knows what tomorrow may bring?!

Summer Fog! ..and one stunning sunset...

6/21 - There was one stunning sunset in SF:

http://www.sfgate.com/living/article/Bay-Area-Instagrammers-lose-their-minds-over-8314424.php

..... not so stunning just a few miles north, where i am.

I am looking for something truly different, like this:

Here's one excellent link:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/chasing-stormy-skies-161030547/photo-chasing-the-stormy-skies-1467130347435.html

Here's some nice cirrus, 6/16:

(A little something to break up the monotony of totally blue skies.)

Sat. 7/9 - By 1PM,  low clouds/fog starts advancing inland - a cool breeze blows in my window.

Love that natural air conditioning! This continues thru the month, it is a bit of a mild rollercoaster - the 7 day forecast looks like this:

Sunday 7/24

Wasn't expecting any good fog, just wanted to cool off a bit from San Rafael's 85º afternoons.

Satellite image showed some fog, but offshore, not thru the Gate, or on onto the land. The Nat'l weather service text display product said the marine layer was shallow, about 1000 ft., which is ideal for photos at MH.

The NWS was right, the sat. image was wrong! - by the time i got there (an hour later, fog doesn't usually move that fast), it was doing my favorite thing, pouring thru the gate but burning off by alcatraz & struggling to get over the coastal hills (only 1000 ft high), burning off in marvelous mystical wispy strands.

The bus schedules had changed recently, but i was in luck, got one to the GGB as soon as i arrived at the transit center, and the one back to MH as soon as i got to the GGB.

Fog seems to have this pattern about it here - it burns off/backs off for a while in the AM, then early PM sometime it starts moving back in, and can overwhelm the headlands w/ pea soup, very cold. That's what it did today, with a vengeance. I waited for the bus at the last stop east before going over the bridge, and it was all i could do to stand up it was so windy. And the wait for the bus back to Marin county was loooong, traffic across the bridge was moving at a snail's pace. 

But the pix were worth it.

'Ah'll be back' as the terminator said most famously.

August was a rather uneventful month...

.....with a few exceptions:
A prismatic event - remember that cirrus clouds are really ice, and as such, like glass, they fracture light beams:

And some early AM fog burning off, it's always magical, ever changing.
Helps one wake up easily, slowly, softly.

But the real topic this time round?.......I took in some marvelous fog, at the end of the July 4 weekend, 7/6.
'I bought the ticket, & took the ride' as Hunter Thompson has written... via Golden Gate transit and SF Muni to Marin Headlands, hoping for some some photogenic fog. I got my wish.
I go to a particular area that I have found to be most interesting for fog.
I start at the last bus stop before the bus goes over the hill, into the next/northern valley, there is a semi-circle of hills that block the fog when it is only 800+ ft. high off the ocean, the hills are on the north, west and east - the south opens to the ocean.
This topography is what makes it interesting, it forces the fog to do interesting things, spill over the hills, wrap around them, and burn off in magical ways.
Here's the topographic map:

You can see how the north, west, and east are blocked off, to almost 900 ft elevation... but the south? ..is open to sea level.
The imbalance in elevation is what makes things happen.

Here's the results:

Here's some links worth your time:

http://www.livescience.com/47225-california-wildfire-fire-clouds-fighter-jet-photos.html
http://www.livescience.com/34024-gallery-weird-clouds.html
 http://abc7news.com/weather/gps-devices-find-huge-water-loss-in-west/275920/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2731091/California-s-vanishing-lakes-Before-photos-reveal-shocking-shriveling-effect-state-s-devastating-drought-decades.html

Summer, fog!... a bit of cirrus... NO rain!

There has been some notably strange cirrus lately!

But from now until October the only sky story here will be 'fog'.

One of my favorite shots of fog, above - it's just trying to form, and make it's way in, to the shore. This how the fog is, always coalescing, and trying to move in, over the hills....

 ...thru the bay, whatever niche it can find to exploit, it will do that, have no doubt about it. It can also burn off just as fast, be a fleeting occurrence, as cool air hits a coastal bluff.



On another note, perhaps next winter will give us a big change-up.

Early signs point to a strong, disruptive El Niño:
(but it depends upon who you listen to!)

'Whales and fish are showing up in odd places, nesting pelicans are in dire straits, and experts are increasingly convinced that this will be a significant event.
June 15, 2014 by Pete Thomas
http://www.grindtv.com/outdoor/nature/post/early-signs-point-strong-disruptive-el-nino/
----------------------

http://theweek.com/article/index/263398/the-return-of-el-nio

( notice that the web person can't spell 'el nino' right, but hey, WTF, the link works.)
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As for the drought?

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/21/us-usa-california-drought-idUSKBN0EW00D20140621

http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_24993601/california-drought-past-dry-periods-have-lasted-more

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/16/california-drought_n_5340596.html

http://www.sgvtribune.com/general-news/20140627/california-drought-blankets-entire-state-el-nino-forecast-dims

I keep reading (or should i say 'clicking upon'?) so many california drought stories that are all the same. All created to make you 'click' you to a page that has advertising, which gets monitored, and bills the advertisers accordingly.
According to your(our) clicks.
This is not news, it is commerce.

I was here ( living in SF) for the last El Nino event - winter, '97.
It rained cats, dogs and other small mammals. And maybe even some larger mammals, if you get my metaphorical drift.
It was "big time bad ass just when you hoped it might end it didn't and set off every car alarm in the neighborhood".
That bad, yes.
We need mo' of that.
------------------

There are lots of less noticed by-products of the drought, here's just a few:

http://news.yahoo.com/california-tule-fog-becoming-increasingly-rare-photo-123716141.html

http://www.sfgate.com/default/article/California-drought-helps-coho-salmon-migration-5576280.php

http://www.sfgate.com/default/article/California-drought-for-salmon-more-at-stake-5318815.php

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This is an old link, but well worth a click, fog in the Grand Canyon,

Check out this majestic and rare site at the Grand Canyon over the weekend:
http://www.livescience.com/41633-grand-canyon-fog-photo.html

http://travel.yahoo.com/blogs/compass/grand-canyon-gets-rare-visitor-massive-fog-203931729.html
For the second time in recent days, the canyon experienced an inversion, where freezing fog and clouds filled the gaping divide, acting like a lid.

12 awe-inspiring Grand Canyon views
Sunset.com
Published 12:18 pm, Thursday, November 7, 2013

http://www.sfgate.com/travel/article/12-awe-inspiring-Grand-Canyon-views-4964512.php

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June 25 - it's actually cloudy, quite cloudy by 4PM.
Will anything actually come of it? Guess who is not holding his breath?
Nothing happened.
The next AM, on my walk to the bus, the sky was like this, rain? zilch!



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A couple of good educational links for ya:
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/lmk/?n=cloud_classification

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storm

I'll be back next month, hopefully w/ some new stuff... if not, previous year's fog will suffice. Really, it will. :-)

 

Time for some more fog.

San Francisco in the summer time can be downright depressing, it can be foggy/socked in for weeks at a time.

But many times, all ya need to do is cross the G.G. Bridge, and it's a different world.
Here's a view from the Marin Headlands - clear blue skies above?... the city is probably socked in.

I like planning to go to the Headlands when the fog is burning off, I like to be on the sunny side of the stuff, interesting things happen as it burns off...

 

 

 

 

The crows like it, too -
here's one having a great time with the updrafts from the burn off:

Now I live in San Rafael, just 15 minutes drive north of the GG Bridge, and this is my view (below) of fog, struggling to get over the hills, and not getting there.

I like watching the constant struggle and interplay between the elements - air, water, barometric pressure. 

It's like mother earth is throwing a party, we are all invited.

Are we treating 'Mom' well??... probably not.

I won't even get started on the whole global warming thing.

This planet has changed incredibly, over hundreds of millions of years. And it will change more than we could possibly imagine, before the sun melts down, and bakes Earth in about...1.75 billion years.