Fog ?
 

Couple questions for you guys in terms of fog:

1) I look at several sources to forecast for wind and swell, but none forecast fog. How do you guys get forecast for fog?

2) Had a situation last Thursday. Was peddling out to the Wall and it was a beautiful, warm, sunny morning. Within 5 minutes in went from bright and clear to 20 yard visibility. Became quite concerned not about getting lost, but about boats not slowing down in the soup and running me over. Any suggestions for safety measures when you find yourself in fog?

Thanks!

David

I have only seen when it's forecast on the local news channel weather segment or when you get there in the morning. Yesterday I looked at the La Jolla Shores Hotel's web site cam and saw it was really heavy fog even after sunrise.

Look at dew point. If dew point and temperature are within 4 degrees of each other, you are on the verge of fog. In a kayak consider that sitting on the water without wind there's often a close relationship between water temperature and air temperature.

Anyway, look up the relationship between dew point and temperature.

I don't know much about marine weather forecasting, but there is lots of information on this for airplane pilots. The 4 degree rule is important for VFR pilots to keep in mind, especially flying in California during "May Gray's" and "June Gloom" conditions. Runways can quickly fog in, and that sucks if you can't see where you're landing!

And here we are .... almost in May. We have had lots of rain recently so we are pretty well soaked around here. As temperatures rise for summer, this moisture goes into the air. This might be a good year for fog and muggy weather for the next two months. That also depends on how fast the heat season comes in for spring and summer. This past few days has been a wonderful early heat spell. Warm air holds more moisture that can precipitate out as fog or "low onshore flow" etc. For the years we have wet weather and moist air in May/June, it seems to last forever, but it almost always burns off and drys out by July.


Maybe this will help: http://theweatherprediction.com/fog/

weather.gov
 

punch in city or location and you can get a very good detailed forecast. you can also click on the regional map and get detailed reports for the zone area. in combination the 2 are a good estimate of what you will encounter. right now La Jolla is predicted to have fog all week long. supposedly that will burn off.

Last thing I want to do is get lost at sea! I have a GPS on my fish finder, pretty common and cheap these days. I always make sure I am tracking my route so I can just follow the line back to my starting point if fog rolls in. If I know its going to be foggy I will use my phone app GPS tracking for a backup in case something were to happy to my fish finder. One time my battery ran out so that got me thinking. Bottom line if you go out in the ocean you have graduated to the big league and need to take precautions. This can be dangerous stuff. I was out a mile or so at La Jolla on a beautiful sunny fall morning. Later that morning I saw a creepy wall of fog rolling over the hills, offshore twords the ocean (very strange). In about 15 min the wind was blowing and you couldn't see more than 50 yards. That was scary. After that I never go out without gps and a VHF radio. Some people don't even have a life-jacket with them, so a few will never learn and one of them will end up on the news every now and then. My favorite weather source is the 'National Weather Service' web site. There is specific information on marine weather that will summarize wind, fog, surf and swell specific for various parts of the So Cal coastal areas.

good stuff
 

good information on having back up in inclement weather. you do this long enough and you will have a battery failure eventually. and I have had similar situations where fog rolls in very quickly and unexpectedly. some scary spit when visibility is down to 30 feet or less.

Compass won't run out of battery. I always have one mounted