Thursday, January 10, 2013

White out.

It is white with frost this morning.  The temperature is down to a rather chilly 27° F and everywhere looks so pretty.  I love it.  However, the past two mornings the Napa Valley experienced very heavy fog.  Not the marine fog (advection fog) that the nearby Pacific Ocean bestows upon the Napa Valley in the summer months, thus ensuring that Vitis vinifera thrives here, but radiation fog; damp, dense and with rather poor visibility.  Or 'proper' fog as I call it when speaking with my family about the vagaries of Bay Area weather to better differentiate it from the marine layer. I love foggy mornings too.  Morning weather like today's evokes childhood memories of walking to school cloaked in a thick fog - alone, but surrounded in the gloom by other neighbourhood kids heading in the same direction as me.  I really looked forward to those rare mornings.  Yes, rare.  Contrary to most American's beliefs, the English do not live in a constant pea soup.  Now, instead of school children appearing from out of the murk, it is the apparitions of leafless trees, skeletal vines and the yellow hint of the burgeoning mustard crop that loom in the near, but hidden, distance.  And I'm not walking to St. Augustines anymore, I am driving to TWWIAGE.

7 comments:

Thomas said...

If you want white out, you have to come here during a windy winter storm. A couple of weeks ago, I had to stop the car for fear that I would drive into or off of something because I could not see a thing in front of me. Had to wait for the wind to die down and he snow to stop blowing across the vineyard to the other side of the road.

I'll take walking to school in a fog over that any day.

Every year about this time I seriously question my sanity for remaining here.

Vinogirl said...

Tomasso: Ha! Okay, you win. You're weather is whiter than mine!

Thud said...

By coincidence we have just had 3 days solid fog and it made the school run rather fun.

About Last Weekend said...

Looks beautiful, a bit Heathcliffy and yet softer and a bit prettier. Freezing and marine foggy here back in Oakland (well jacket weather for once.)

A Good Moroccan said...

Picture looks worse than England.

We had some light snow today.

All the best for 2013 !

New Hampshire Wineman said...

The picture? I like the trees; I was a tree-huger in the sixties and have always found fogged-in trees to be interesting.
However this is more like a: Hi, miss you and your posts and trust all is well!

Vinogirl said...

Tomasso: That would be "your" weather. Tut!

Thud: Always reminds me of BB Lane :)

ALW: But you just had a nice, warm Christmas in New Zealand didn't you?

Villager: Not worse, or bad, just a little like winter at home.

NHW: I think fog makes shapes change and so more interesting. Still here, just distracted...