Ice fog
That white cloud in the background of the uppermost photo looks impressive when its droplets and ice crystals reflect the light of the flash needed to take my outfit photo. In the second photo, my photographer just hit the button when I was standing in the ice fog.
Ice fog is a common winter phenomenon in Fairbanks during extended extremely cold weather. Typically under these conditions, we have an inversion. This means that the temperature increases with height instead of decreasing with height. Inversions suppress vertical mixing of air. Thus, all the pollutants emitted into the inversion layer stay in the inversion layer. Over time water vapor and aerosols accumulate. The aerosols serve as cloud and ice nuclei. Once the air is humid enough, the aerosols start swelling. Small droplets build that may freeze. These haze or ice-fog plumes form in the near stagnant air. Since wind speeds are close to zero these plumes move slowly. Compared to their movement, their density changes fast.
Ice fog or Arctic haze as it is also often called incorrectly (as Fairbanks is in the subarctic), is pretty annoying when you drive. With a sudden, the car in front of you vanishes! It was 20 yard in front of you just a second ago. You are driving 10 mph into the fog, and just hope the car in front of you keeps its speed. Sometimes when you are at a traffic light and the lights turn green, the car in front of you vanishes in the fog made by its own exhausts.
Ice fog is scary! The two photos were just taken about 10 seconds apart.
What I wore to work
The three photos below show what I wore under the coat shown (or not shown) in the photos above 😉 . I wore my Barbour cable-knit dress over my suede skirt to stay warm. The belt served to create a 1/3 2/3 balance also in the other direction and picked up the red of the lower third of the outfit.
You can find other posts on Alaska’s weather and how to dress for it at the links, for instance, the first frost of fall, Chinook permits donning bare legs in winter, and Alaska’s short fall.
Other outfits I wore this week: Posh casual look with boot-cut jeans
The photos break my outfit down. I wore the sweater with cardigan, jeans and pumps at the office on a -30F (-34.4C) day last week. For the commute I added a shearling coat with scarf and hat and swapped the pumps for booties.
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Photos: G. Kramm
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