It is why, until recently, few people worried about wildfires along the coast. Summer fog is why the mighty coastal redwoods grow where they do, surviving California’s dry season thanks to refreshing gulps of cold, wet air. It is why fewer than half of Bay Area residents have air-conditioning, and partly why they use less water than most Americans. It is why realtors talk about neighborhood fog patterns as much as square footage and schools. Millions are affected by it, if only by the invisible cool breezes that presage the fog’s arrival.įog is why one neighborhood is notoriously chilly, another is surprisingly sunny, and the airport is where it is. Fog pours through the Golden Gate and crawls up and down the wrinkled hills of the city and the nearby coast. While coastal fog isn’t unique to the California coast, few places in the world are so deeply associated with the ethereal movements and cooling spritz of fog’s peek-a-boo routine. Rachel Clemesha, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, U.C. The bridge’s five fog horns went unused, for now.Ī marine layer of low cloud typically hugs the California coast and moves north in summer, causing what’s known as “June Gloom” in Los Angeles and then “Fogust” in San Francisco. The day remained gloriously sunny, unusually hot and fog-free, the kind of San Francisco summer’s day that some fear is becoming more frequent. Just then, a slight breeze, an invisible puff of chill, the kind you might get by opening the freezer door. He had a hunch it would stay away, defying the familiar summertime cycle. That day on the bridge, computer models predicted the fog would push through the Golden Gate in an hour or two. Quantifying the changes and determining possible causes, including global warming, is climatology’s version of chasing ghosts. But understanding fog is one of science’s toughest tricks. The ecological, economic and social effects of fog are profound, perhaps no more than in Northern California. In fact, annual festivals are held in its honor in the cities of Banner Elk, NC, Beattyville, KY, Vermilion, OH, and Lewisburg, PA.One of the Golden Gate Bridge’s five foghorns, silent in the sunlight. Curran's success (coloration is said to have less to do with weather and more to do with a caterpillar's development stage and genetics), but this inconvenient fact hasn't seemed to influence the woolly worm's popularity. Since then, researchers haven't been able to replicate Dr. By observing caterpillar markings and comparing these to winter weather forecasts (provided by a reporter at the New York Herald Tribune), Curran found that the width of reddish-brown hair correctly matched the winter type with 80% accuracy. Charles Curran, former curator of insects at New York City’s Museum of Natural History. The woolly worm's talent was first discovered in the late 1940s by Dr. (What's more, the woolly has exactly 13 segments to the length of his body-the same number of weeks there are of winter.) Some consider the woolly's hair thickness to be another indicator, with a thicker coat signaling harsher, and sparse hairs a milder winter season. However, if the band is wide, then the winter will be a mild and short one. If the brown band is narrow, the winter will be cold and long. According to legend, the width of the middle brown band foretells the severity of the upcoming winter. The larvae of Isabella tiger moths-more commonly known as woolly worms, or woolly bear caterpillars-are easily recognized by their short, stiff bristles of reddish-brown and black hair.
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