Remember back last Summer, when the Fresno-Chaffee zoo adopted Maple the groundhog from a zoo in Oregon? She made her Fresno debut, there was a contest to name her, and Maple has been a little quiet ever since.

Well, now we’re turning the calendar from a very foggy January to FOGUARY, and it’s Maple’s time to shine once again! Groundhog Day is Monday, and she’s got a forecast to make. If she sees her shadow Monday morning, old folklore says that we’ll have 6 more weeks of winter. This Winter, it seems like it would just be 6 more weeks of fog, but I digress. If she does not see her shadow, that would mean an early start to Spring, and that’s the heavy betting favorite in the Fox 26 Weather Center. Unless they let her sleep in late.

There certainly hasn’t been a lot of variety in our weather lately. We start the morning off thick fog in the Valley… which burns off to hazy sunshine by the afternoon. Fog re-forms in the Valley overnight, and that’s the pattern. For the past 3+ weeks, and it won’t change through the first week of Foguary. Long range models are hinting at rain beyond that, but they’ve been doing that for a couple of weeks now. I’ll believe it when I see it.

Just looking at climatology, our fog should be done soon after that. We average 5 days of dense fog (where Visibility drop to 1/4 mile or below) at Fresno-Yosemite International airport in November, 11 in both December and January, 5 in February, and a little over 1 in March… a classic Bell Curve. We’ve had 31 days of dense fog at Fresno-Yosemite this season, and many more where the Visibility was only slightly better. We average 5 dense fog days in February and 1 in March. If we stick to average fog the rest of the season, we’ll finish at 37 days of dense fog this season, which would be our foggiest season in 23 years. The winter of 2002-2003 saw 40 dense fog days.

What started out as a wet winter has transformed into a foggy one, but we’re not done yet. For what’s ahead, we’ll need to consult with one of the newest ambassadors at the Fresno-Chaffee zoo… Maple the Groundhong.