Western Skies

Saturday, July 30, 2016

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.

Saturday, June 18, 2016

What did the rest of May and June bring? Mostly boredom!

Absolutely nothing noteworthy. Nada, Zilch. The next few months? Perhaps maybe some fog, off the ocean.

Fog is our (=those who live close to the Ca coast) natural air conditioner, it sweeps in overnite, the morning is overcast, it burns off to the ocean by midday. The daily weather report becomes a mantra = 'low clouds and fog extending inland overnite, receding to the coast by midday, temps? 60 at the coast, 70-80 around the bay, 90's inland'.

I'd like to be well paid for being so repetitive!

By mid-afternoon, it can surge in again from the coast.

On Sun, May 29, i went to Marin headlands, and that was exactly what happened, it surged in again at mid-afternoon.

Sooooo.... let's think 'coastal fog' whaddaya say?

Whoaa!!Not so fast..........!!

Recent days, June 12 or so, have brought some interesting things to the Bay area - two systems ( a low and i high) have rubbed up against each other, and made 'looking up' a lot more interesting :-)