On Jun 9, 1:36 pm, Dick Lovett wrote:
On Jun 9, 1:13 pm, Trevor Harley wrote:



This morning, as I satshivering in the haar, I noticed a light mist
drifting a foot or so above the soil of a ploughed field behind my
house.

In twenty years of weather watching I've never seen anything like it.
At first I thought it was dust being stirred up by the light SE wind,
or smoke, but it was a very local mist hugging the ground, drifting,
coming and going, on the wind, just above the bare earth.

Photographs are at:

http://web.mac.com/trevor.harley/iWe...st%20Roll.html

They were taken just before midday. Temperature was 16C, the haar had
lifted a bit and the sun was just starting to shine faintly through the
low-level clouds.

What's the physics I find it hard to believe the soil is cooling the air.

It looks like Arctic Sea Smoke, also known as steam fog. The damp soil
has been heated sufficiently by the sunshine to
set up weak thermals of moist air which readily condense in the
relatively cool air just above the surface.

Something similar can sometimes be seen rising to just over hedge
height on occasion in the remains of the marshes around Beaumaris and
between Abegele and Kinmel Bay.

A fantastic sight. Not one that is overly particular to the time of
the year if I remember correctly.