Fog snakes its way from the ocean into the Strait of Juan de Fuca in this animation constructed from satellite imagery. The strait lies between Vancouver Island and the Olympic Peninsula in the Pacific Northwest. Fogs like this form when skies are clearer and heat from the surface is able to escape upward. The surface air then cools and condenses into fog. Steady winds pushed fog into the strait over the course of about 9 hours. There’s a remarkable level of detail in the satellite images, taken by the new GOES-16 satellite that launched in late 2016. Notice the ragged wave front as the fog stretches eastward and the shock-wave-like lines behind it in the strait. Both result from interactions between the fog cloud and the shape of the land masses it’s encountered. (Image credit: NASA Earth Observatory)
Tendrils of Fog
