August Fog

I had a couple of people ask me if I had forgotten my yearly ritual of watching for fog formation during the month of August. I had not forgotten to tally and snap a few pictures, but I had forgotten to write about it and remind of of you readers.

To get everyone up to date, many years ago I had come across and Old Farmer’s Almanac that had counted days of fog in August leads to foretelling what the upcoming winter will be. The Almanac seemed to lead to the conclusion that have fog days in August would predict the amount of snow days in the wintertime. Since I am a skeptical person, I tried it for myself and have been reporting my observations for several years now.

Things I have found out;

1. Fog is an elusive thing and I have no fog-meter to precisely measure said thickness, volume or obscuring smoke that made it nearly impossible last year.
2. Since I am in a small pocket between a hill on the east and another on the west, my little valley tends to hold morning fog on the shady side of east hill that most other people around the area do not have even though they get about the same weather.
3. All-day fog is unusual and have only seen that one or two times since I have started these observations.
4. I have had to categorize types of fog by how long it lasts into the day in order to get an idea of how pervasive it is for each 24 hour time period.

So I note each day as it unfolds. If there is no fog it is an easy day.

If it burns off by a certain time, I note that in the log, i.e. 8am, 9am, 11am.

If I do not happen to be at home on one of those August days I put someone in charge of observations. I have come to realize that this is a very sketchy option and count it as my ‘wild card’ observations that I not rely on too heavily.

So far this month I have noted one foggy day that lasted until 9am and one that just hung in the shade of the east hill until the sun burned it off as the shadow disappeared.

This story will continue to unfold though out the month of August and then again during the wintertime.