Another foggy / misty start

This morning along with yesterday morning our atmosphere became very stable and winds became light to calm. At night, under such conditions, heat that’s radiated back to space does not mix well and rises, settling above cooler and denser air. This forms a temperature inversion. If sufficient moisture is available and depending on the depth of the inversion fog and mist can develop.

The sounding of KRKR, which is the identifier from Poteau, OK highlights such an inversion up to about 950 mb. This is roughly 1900 feet. At the top of most of our weather updates on the sunrise show we’ll start off with views from around the area. Yesterday there was a layer of clouds roughly around 1000 ft. and today in the Poteau area, moderate mist was spread across the area up to at least 1900 feet. The sounding above is from the RUC model and variations of 500 feet are entirely possible. In all likely hood the inversion was up to some 2500 feet, which is just about at camera level, making for some "spooky" above or slightly in the cloud images.

We shall see what tomorrow brings. Actual tower cam height on Cavanal Mtn. is some 2,635 feet up, making it higher than Mt. Magazine!

Posted by Ted Zarras at 10:15 AM