ICY SCIENCE: SCIENCE SPACE ASTRONOMY Spring 2014 | Page 72

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‘fog’ basically goes on and on into the sky
with no end: a claustrophobic low cloud
that is dismal at its very best. Radiation/
valley fog (a low lying Stratus) for us on
the side of the hill is quite spectacular, as
you can see from this photo. Perhaps not
so good for the people living in the village
enveloped within it…but for a cloud spotting photo opportunist this was heaven!
Valley fog forms where cold dense air
settles into a valley condensing and forming
fog. It is often the result of a temperature
inversion, with warmer air passing above
the valley. We quite often see it. This particular day was even more exciting. Usually
when the valley fog is present we are just
about on the fog line at the house, or
it is well below us in the valley, as in the
photo above. (The photo was taken from
halfway up our track). With the sun about
to rise and plenty of fog below I had the
perfect conditions to try and capture two
of my sought after optical phenomena – A
fogbow and a glory.
Armed with my camera and tripod I drove
ICY SCIENCE | QTR 2 SPRING 2014