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Memorable Foggy Spells


Summer18

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Posted
  • Location: North Leeds
  • Location: North Leeds

It’s currently been foggy for the past few days here, it’s got me thinking about previous foggy periods.

I seem to be remember the period before Christmas 2006 being really foggy for days, I think they had a lot of disruption in aviation before Christmas because of it.

Another one that sticks out is the first week of April 2014, I believe that particular foggy spell was caused by smog and dust from Sahara. My car was covered in red dust when the fog lifted.

Can anybody else remember any other memorable foggy spells?

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Posted
  • Location: Cleeve, North Somerset
  • Weather Preferences: Continental winters & summers.
  • Location: Cleeve, North Somerset

Going back through the records, these periods had consecutive days of fog or were extended periods in which consecutive fog days occurred here:

2002 - 03rd-05th January

2003 - 18th-20th February

2005 - 19th-22nd November

2006 - 01st-03rd February & 20th-23rd December

2007 - 15th-22nd December

2008 - 28th-30th November, 14th-15th December & 29th December - 01st Jan

2009 - 01st, 08th-10th January & 10th-13th December

2010 - 15th-16th November, 06th-08th December

2011 - 19th-20th, 30th-31st January & 19th-20th November

2012 - 11th-12th December

2013 - 10th-11th December

2014 - 15th-16th, 29th-30th November

2015 - 09th-10th February, 03rd-04th October & 02nd-03rd November

2016 - 29th-30th November, 01st-02nd & 28th-30th December

2017 - 06th-07th, 19th-22nd January, 17th-18th February & 02nd-03rd November

2018 - 22nd-23rd November

2019 - 04th-05th January

 

 

There have of course been other individual fog days but these spells stand out more.

 

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Posted
  • Location: just south of Doncaster, Sth Yorks
  • Location: just south of Doncaster, Sth Yorks

For my own weather station 1997-present, I have now had 3 consecutive mornings at 9 am with fog, generally 200 M or less, 2 mornings with 50 M, and so far it has been persistent thoughout each 24 hours

At no other time in this period has this ever happened before.

 

I have all the weather records for RAF Finningel 1942-1995 and the average days with fog at 9 AM was 3, so it would seem unlikely that it had any with 3 consecutive in November, September and October had averages of 5 so possible in those months. I have 'lost' for th moment the fog averages for other months.

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Posted
  • Location: just south of Doncaster, Sth Yorks
  • Location: just south of Doncaster, Sth Yorks
25 minutes ago, johnholmes said:

For my own weather station 1997-present, I have now had 3 consecutive mornings at 9 am with fog, generally 200 M or less, 2 mornings with 50 M, and so far it has been persistent thoughout each 24 hours

At no other time in this period has this ever happened before.

 

I have all the weather records for RAF Finningley 1942-1995 and the average days with fog at 9 AM was 3, so it would seem unlikely that it had any with 3 consecutive in November, September and October had averages of 5 so possible in those months. I have 'lost' for th moment the fog averages for other months.

 

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Posted
  • Location: Efford, Plymouth
  • Weather Preferences: Misty Autumn Mornings, Thunderstorms and snow
  • Location: Efford, Plymouth

Do remember the run up to Christmas 1992 as being very bad for fog and traffic being severely affected. Christmas Eve was particularly bad- back then Radio 1 did traffic news at Breakfast and the late Dianne Oxberry was on for nearly 4 minutes with traffic problems it was that grim.

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Posted
  • Location: Beccles, Suffolk.
  • Weather Preferences: Thunder, snow, heat, sunshine...
  • Location: Beccles, Suffolk.

Well, I don't much recall 1992 (I was in the Scottish Highlands, at the time!) but I do remember those thick, green and smelly fogs of November 1962! And, no, that doesn't mean a 1963 redux winter is about to happen...

Edited by General Cluster
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Posted
  • Location: sheffield
  • Weather Preferences: Basically intresting weather,cold,windy you name it
  • Location: sheffield
11 minutes ago, Weather-history said:

December 2010 producing some stunning rime deposits, it was amazing, it was like moderate snow the way it came down.

CnoUCRc.jpgbFOsx5f.jpgjyk9ueO.jpgpLbq2aW.jpgU96oyze.jpg

 

SQVO0sx.jpgzAWaNas.jpgPOWgOPq.jpgNF5Zb8f.jpgD9VFu8F.jpg

 

HrUIi9L.jpgd2Dcnym.jpgSISac54.jpgZfWdSD2.jpgM6MvGGd.jpg

Io8J68H.jpg9scSWE4.jpg

Stunning photos.

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Posted
  • Location: Cheshire
  • Location: Cheshire
1 hour ago, General Cluster said:

Well, I don't much recall 1992 (I was in the Scottish Highlands, at the time!) but I do remember those thick, green and smelly fogs of November 1962! And, no, that doesn't mean a 1963 redux winter is about to happen...

Yes, the 1st to 7th December 1962 produced the last great smog before the Clean Air legislation of 1956 began to take effect. I was at grammar school in Surrey at the time and the Headmaster sent us home early one afternoon when the fog was especially thick. Except that we were creating bedlam in a classroom at the far end of the school and the message did not get through to us. We were not amused! Smog of December 1952 was apparently worse but before my time. Fingers crossed for no repeat of the 1962/3 winter.   

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Posted
  • Location: halifax 125m
  • Weather Preferences: extremes the unusual and interesting facts
  • Location: halifax 125m

1992 was very foggy at christmas.December that year here was the least sunny month since 1908 according to the Met office with only 7 hours of sunshine.Interesting after a little dig there were a number of months within a few years of 1992 with 10 to 18 hours sunshine for the month whereas since 1996 the lowest for any month has been 23 hours!

Edited by hillbilly
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Posted
  • Location: Bratislava, Slovakia
  • Location: Bratislava, Slovakia

Those December 2010 photos are from the 6th I assume. That was probably the best rime event I've ever seen, and it compensated for most of the earlier snow having melted.

Late December 2006 was a good run of cold, foggy days. Ironic that it occurred during such a mild winter (the jet stream was so far north that the Euro High moved right over us).

I was in Liverpool for both of those events. Having some foggy mornings right now in Slovakia. They tend to be pretty common here in autumn. 

Edited by AderynCoch
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Posted
  • Location: Beccles, Suffolk.
  • Weather Preferences: Thunder, snow, heat, sunshine...
  • Location: Beccles, Suffolk.
3 hours ago, A Face like Thunder said:

Yes, the 1st to 7th December 1962 produced the last great smog before the Clean Air legislation of 1956 began to take effect. I was at grammar school in Surrey at the time and the Headmaster sent us home early one afternoon when the fog was especially thick. Except that we were creating bedlam in a classroom at the far end of the school and the message did not get through to us. We were not amused! Smog of December 1952 was apparently worse but before my time. Fingers crossed for no repeat of the 1962/3 winter.   

I guess I missed by a day AFLT... Can I be excused, as I was only 5, at the time? But, anywho, the fog came down before 4pm... and it smelled like the nearby brickworks!

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Posted
  • Location: Wildwood, Stafford 104m asl
  • Weather Preferences: obviously snow!
  • Location: Wildwood, Stafford 104m asl
10 minutes ago, AderynCoch said:

Those December 2010 photos are from the 6th I assume. That was probably the best rime event I've ever seen, and it compensated for most of the earlier snow having melted.

Late December 2006 was a good run of cold, foggy days. Ironic that it occurred during such a mild winter (the jet stream was so far north that the Euro High moved right over us).

I was in Liverpool for both of those events. Having some foggy mornings right now in Slovakia. They tend to be pretty common here in autumn. 

6th was amazing, best rime ever, Tuesday 7th white trees with bright blue skies, then turned slightly milder on the wednesday, thaw

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Posted
  • Location: Croydon
  • Location: Croydon

Two spells that stand out for me are mid-December 1991 which last a few days and has an impressive build up of rime. Also Christmas Eve 1994, a couple of foggy and very cold days which quickly lifted for a mild Christmas day. Both spells produced ice days at Heathrow.

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Posted
  • Location: Ashbourne,County Meath,about 6 miles northwest of dublin airport. 74m ASL
  • Weather Preferences: Cold weather - frost or snow
  • Location: Ashbourne,County Meath,about 6 miles northwest of dublin airport. 74m ASL

Nov 88 had a cold frosty spell which gave rise to alot of smog.  It was spells like  that , that led to a smokey coal ban in Ireland a few years later.

NOAA_1_1988112318_1.png

Edited by sundog
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Posted
  • Location: Shrewsbury
  • Location: Shrewsbury

Christmases 1992 and 2006 I agree with, also the run up to Christmas 1994 was very cold, frosty and foggy here despite being another mostly very mild month. It ended on Christmas Eve when it started pouring with rain, not even an attempt to snow even though it was barely 0C at the start, and was 10C+ on Christmas day.

December 2001 had quite a bit of freezing fog too, as did the winter of 91/2 (for all its lack of snow it wasn't particularly mild) and the autumns of 1992 and 1993. Was the period 1991-94, especially autumn and early winter, unusually foggy or something? Definitely seemed to be a lot of it around then compared to nowadays.

But the one month I associate with fog above any other weather is March 1997. There was a run of really foggy nights/mornings that month, strangely it wasn't frosty fog or mucky drizzly stuff, it was just very low visibility. I remember it causing a bad crash on one of the Birmingham motorways one morning. It wasn't cold, in fact there was nothing cold at all that month. Just foggy, 

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Posted
  • Location: just south of Doncaster, Sth Yorks
  • Location: just south of Doncaster, Sth Yorks

And another foggy start making it 4 in a row, I cannot recall, even as a small boy living in a coal mining village  in the years before the Clean Air Act seeing 4 consecutive mornings with fog.

It has now cleared but left a dull rather damp morning with very low ST.

 

Those Ice fog photos are superb.

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Posted
  • Location: Wakefield, West Yorkshire
  • Location: Wakefield, West Yorkshire

Good thread - I was thinking recently that we haven't had a proper pea-souper for ages. I remember in the 90s in Bradford we seemed to have fog regularly that so bad that would you barely see a couple of metres in front of you. Don't remember any fog like that for a loooooong time. I've been in Wakefield for 20 years now and not seen any real thick fog that I can recall.

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Posted
  • Location: North Leeds
  • Location: North Leeds

This period we are going through now is particularly foggy, think this is day 4 of a thick fog but it has slowly cleared. Currently in self isolation which makes things even more depressing!

The first week of November 2015 I remember being another foggy period, Sunday 1st was really mild and sunny but the fog descended on the Sunday afternoon and lasted for about 5 days.

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Posted
  • Location: Irlam
  • Location: Irlam

In November 1936. visibility in Manchester  dropped to 600 yards on the 19th. From about 6.30pm on the 21st to about 10.40am on the 28th, it was constantly below 220 yards, a period of over 160hrs of continuous fog.  On the evening of the 27th, visibility was down to 1 to 3 yards at one stage making even travel on foot nigh on impossible.
With the great industries in and around Manchester, the fog became increasingly polluted and the fog became highly acidic with sulphurous compounds which irritated the respiratory system . The soot started to coated substances with a black wet slime, so much so that a number of cotton mills had to shut down because the fog was soiling the yarn. 
At Bournville, the fog preciptated a light drizzle which had a pH of 3.0 The acidicity of the fog was such that even in doors, silver and copper articles became tarnished. All surfaces outdoors such as pavements, grass etc became very sooty.

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Posted
  • Location: just south of Doncaster, Sth Yorks
  • Location: just south of Doncaster, Sth Yorks

Even I cannot remember that! I do remember in the 50's being able to taste the fog, awful taste, and visibility not unusually in fog would be about 10-12 yards.

In March 1957 I was at the Met Office school for observers somewhere on the outskirts and was staying in digs in soewhere a bus ride away. One Saturday morning, blue skies, misty and I caught the tube to get off at Trafalgar Square taking no notice of anyting outside before the tube went underground. Coming up the escalator I could smell it much as I just commented on at home. People were coughing as they down. It appeared like night and it was impossible to see across the wide pavement it was so dense. 1 pm in the afternoon and as black as the ace of spades, very little traffic with policemen all over with torches and conductors off the buses trying to lead the drivers. Turned round after 10 minutes, back in the digs area blue skies again.

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Posted
  • Location: halifax 125m
  • Weather Preferences: extremes the unusual and interesting facts
  • Location: halifax 125m

I worked on a farm at 1200Metres from the mid 80s to early noughties and lived 10 mins walk away over the fields.During winter months the most difficult walks to work was obviously snow but also Fog.Many times in the dark it was easy to lose my path and i opted instead to walk round following the walls.It is pretty scary when you get lost in the fog in the dark.The worst of all is getting lost in the dark in fog but also after snow,the reflection of snow and fog loses any sight you have and can be quite terrifying.

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