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| Source: Wikimedia Commons |
I wrote about ice fog back when I visited Carol Kilgore's Under the Tiki Hut blog back in March. In the interest of time, I'm just going to share what I wrote for my post on Carol's page again here:
One of the most interesting things I learned about winter in Fairbanks is the presence of ice fog. Ice fog occurs when the air is simply too cold (usually -40 degrees or colder) to absorb the moisture that comes from things such as car exhausts or even human breath. Instead of dissipating into the atmosphere the moisture turns into fine ice crystals that are suspended in the air. Apparently the early settlers in Alaska called the fog “white death” because they believed the crystals could get into their lungs and kill them. I thought it was such a creepy phenomenon that I simply had to include it in my novel.I've never experienced temperatures anywhere close to that cold, as the lowest recorded temperature in Cincinnati history is -16 degrees, and that was in 1936. So I can't even begin to imagine what ice fog would be like. And I sincerely hope it's not something I ever actually experience. Yikes!
My A-Z theme of Alaska is inspired by my debut novel, Polar Night, which is set in the Alaskan Arctic. Click here for all the info on the book.
