Monday, January 18, 2010

Freezing Fog in northern Illinois

Day after day of dense fog conditions with temperatures in the upper 20s is now making itself known in northern Illinois and I'm sure surrounding areas. Didn't seem to be freezing in central Illinois, but I made my way back north last night and things are different up here. I had planned on getting up around sunrise to set out before things melted. Once my alarm sounded, it became apparent that freezing fog is not on the level of importance that a storm chasing day, or class might be and did not warrant my early rise and I quickly shut off my alarm and went back to bed. I woke up on my own a few hours later, and decided it did not look amazing outside anymore with no substantial accumulations but decided to head out anywhere. As per usual, I picked up a 32 oz. coke, gassed up the car and was on my way out. I quickly realized things were more interesting than they had appeared out my front window. I spend about an hour walking around the Northern Illinois Univ. campus here in DeKalb, but even that did not do it justice. I then hopped on I-88, and then I-39 south a few miles to the Highway 30 corridor in Ogle and DeKalb Counties were I had quite a bit of luck finding some incredible accumulations from the fog.

Looking south down the road into the fog, with substantial freezing fog accumulations to the left.



This was one of the coolest sights. The fog accumulating on little grass blades on the side of the road.



Pretty cool old building that I stumbled upon.



The pine trees really piled on the ice.





Perhaps I'm weird, but I just find this really fascinating. How much time it must take FOG to accumulate this much on a branch.



Kind of like an ice storm, but not.















Western sides absorbed the brunt of the moisture in the light west winds, while eastern sides were shielded.



Unharvested corn from the fall getting in on the action as well.



Nice little 4 hour local "chase" and saw something new today, at least to this extent.

2 comments:

Dann Cianca said...

Got some nice shots in there man!

Adam L said...

nice work man, nothing like that happening here in the city >=\