BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) — Parts of Kern County had enough dense fog Wednesday morning to lead to several school delays in the northern valley and we could see that repeat again overnight into Thursday morning.
The fog dissipates by mid-day, leaving each afternoon for the rest of the week and into this weekend sunny and in the 60s for most of the valley and south mountains, with sunny 70s in the Kern River Valley and Kern Desert.
Some viewers may question how we get this dense fog in the valley, especially when it hasn’t rained in two weeks.
Tule fog is considered radiational fog. When there are clear skies at night, most of the solar energy that was absorbed by the earth’s surface during the day radiates away from the surface causing the ground to cool considerably.
If night skies are cloudy, then the clouds act as a blanket to hold in that radiating energy instead of letting it escape back out of the atmosphere. Cold air is more dense than warm air and will sink due to gravity thus, air that cools near the surface along mountains will drain into the valleys.
Valleys then become pockets of very cold air in the early morning hours and if there’s any moisture in that air, it will condense into fog.
Tule fog is hard to get rid of because the valleys tend to be protected from winds that would normally mix out the fog.
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