On 9 Jun, 13:36, 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.

Trevor
Dismal Dundee

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.

Dick- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

You can get it over flat sand, tyically just after low tide. The sun
heats the sand, and the cool breeze off the sea flowing just over it
causes a layer of steam. It can give a strange effect as you look
along the beach, lots of heads & no legs.

Graham
Penzance