FOGMAGEDDON. The FOGPOCALYPSE. Whatever you want to call it, it’s not stopping; the foggy mornings should continue for at least the next week.
And our recent run of 40 degree temperatures may also continue for a while as well! We’ll keep our fingers crossed for some change in the 2nd half of December, but the first half is going to go down as cool and foggy.
For the San Joaquin Valley to get that thick, dense, widespread, near-0-visibility Tule Fog, you need 2 main ingredients: moist ground from recent rain, and clear skies from high pressure overhead. We definitely have had the rain… both October and November were very wet! And now high pressure is here, which cleared the skies out initially, calmed the winds down, and allowed what little heat the sun gave us during the day to radiate away overnight. When the temperature cools down to the high dew point (high because of the recent rains), the water in the air has nowhere left to go… so it condenses out into fog. And then stays. And stays. And stays… until a new storm, or some kind of offshore wind, or Summer (!) cleans the air up. But it doesn’t look like anything is changing for at least another week, so… the fog is sticking around.
Our recent lack of sunshine (thanks to the fog) has kept our temperatures VERY stable. The temperature in Fresno warmed up to 40 early Tuesday morning… and we haven’t left the 40’s since! Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday’s highs were all in the 40’s, while low temperatures those days were also in the 40’s. As of 1 am Saturday morning (time for Kris to get to bed!), Fresno has spent 90 consecutive hours with temperatures in the 40’s, and nothing else. So, is that a record? Not even close. The record is about twice that: 187 hours, set back in December of 1994. However, the forecast is saying there’s a chance: the next day I have a high or low that’s NOT in the 40’s is next Sunday, December 14th. We would break that record early Wednesday (December 10th), if we continue streaking. If my forecast is spot on, we will shatter that record! I don’t know if that’s anything to celebrate, but I’ll be watching it nevertheless.