Seattle’s Pea Soup Recipe
Start with chilly weather conditions. Add a temperature inversion with a ridge of high pressure trapping cold air close to the surface. Mix ingredients together, then cook well to form low visibility and stagnant air conditions.
While the number of Eskimo words for “snow” remains debatable among linguists, one thing we know for sure: after 5 days of being socked in here in the Puget Sound region, we Seattleites have pretty much exhausted our lexicon of words for “fog.”
So here’s a tip if you want to impress the locals: sprinkle your small talk with observations about the difference between “freezing fog,” when temperatures at ground level drop to or below freezing, and “ice fog,” suspended ice crystals that form when temperatures are typically 20 degrees or more below freezing. Both are different from “cloud fog,” or course, which doesn’t touch the ground. At least I think that’s right, though my memory may be a bit foggy on that.
How’s the winter weather in your neck of the woods, Wanderboomers?
7 comments
Lovely, Nancy. I like the top one in particular. I posted fog photos last Friday. It’s been a foggy sort of week!
I’ll tell my husband to read this post for pictorial evidence of Seattle’s bad weather. We visited Seattle in June a couple years ago, prepared for rain and chill, and had to go to Target to buy shorts! Since then, my husband is convinced that Seattle is absolutely beautiful, and the residents purposely spread the rumor of bad weather to keep everyone else from moving there in droves.
Thanks, Beth! I appreciate your stopping by.
We don’t get fog enough for me to have every learned the distinctions of different types of fog. I had never even thought about it before!
Fog has its own beauty, as your photos show. It “creeps in on little cat feet,” and suddenly you’re in the middle of a cloud. Or in the pea soup. Is it Seattle’s marine air that brings so much fog? Better than blizzards of snow!
Great question, Marilyn! Here’s a link that answers your question better than I can: http://bit.ly/YAYnZg. According to Steve Pool, KOMO’s meterologist, marine winds can carry fog from the coast into the Puget Sound region. Blizzards of snow have their place, but not in Seattle, thank goodness
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