But your fog, it really moves!
July 29, 2011 10:41 AM   Subscribe

 
It's 102 outside right now. This and my memories from living in SF were just what I needed to cool off. Lovely, thanks.
posted by anya32 at 10:45 AM on July 29, 2011 [1 favorite]


Wasn't this a Stephen King short story?

Neat!
posted by Admiral Haddock at 10:47 AM on July 29, 2011


Cool! Just shared with my friend who visited for Pride and was sooo amazed by our wacky fog.
posted by ClaudiaCenter at 10:52 AM on July 29, 2011


my god I miss that town.
posted by deadmessenger at 10:53 AM on July 29, 2011


Admiral Haddock, you're thinking of The Mist. I haven't read the story but the film based on it was excellent.

The author of the video appears to live pretty close to where I do.
posted by Idle Curiosity at 10:53 AM on July 29, 2011


The most mundane things are amazing looking seen at different scales and/or from the inside.
posted by DU at 10:54 AM on July 29, 2011


Finally, a SL[video]P I can watch at work.
posted by resurrexit at 10:55 AM on July 29, 2011


Thanks for this. Used to live under that. It was so wonderful coming home from work in the stifling hot east bay to 40deg cooler climes at home. Watching that roll over the hill as I took the Central Freeway home was one of my favorite sights that I never captured before I moved from SF.
posted by buzzv at 10:56 AM on July 29, 2011


My house just got the chills. And friends, if you ever visit SF in the summer, please always carry layers! This is not LA (have had many friends who learned that the hard way).

"The coldest winter I ever spent, was a summer in San Francisco." Damn right, but I love this place.

Lovely video, thanks!
posted by mapinduzi at 11:02 AM on July 29, 2011


The same thing happens off of the Santa Cruz Mountains west of Palo Alto in the late afternoon. I see it when driving home on 280.

Beautiful.
posted by m@f at 11:04 AM on July 29, 2011 [2 favorites]


DU : "The most mundane things are amazing looking seen at different scales and/or from the inside."

Wait, are you saying you think the footage is sped up? It's real time. Except the end when he reverses it for some reason.

Also, gaah wipe your lens!
posted by danny the boy at 11:14 AM on July 29, 2011


And friends, if you ever visit SF in the summer, please always carry layers!

I have a pet theory that the massive Old Navy on Market exists only to sell fleece to tourists that didn't check local weather before packing for their visit.
posted by Senor Cardgage at 11:17 AM on July 29, 2011 [1 favorite]


I have a pet theory that the massive Old Navy on Market exists only to sell fleece to tourists that didn't check local weather before packing for their visit.

It's so you can go on BART to buy clothes, I think. Beats taking the bus to Emeryville.
posted by hoyland at 11:23 AM on July 29, 2011 [1 favorite]


My first thought was "My God, it looks just like water flowing over the hill!" Then I remembered that gases are basically really, really diffuse liquids.
posted by Turkey Glue at 11:28 AM on July 29, 2011 [1 favorite]


It never gets foggy in my neighborhood near Union Square.
posted by ryanrs at 11:46 AM on July 29, 2011


The same thing happens off of the Santa Cruz Mountains west of Palo Alto in the late afternoon. I see it when driving home on 280.

It's one of my favorite things about driving home from Menlo Park to SF (on 280, of course - the most beautiful commute ever) in the summer. One of these days I'm going to stop at one of the scenic overlook things and take some damn pictures and video.

It's not all that fun to be standing in it, though. It's cold and damp and windy is what it is.
posted by rtha at 11:51 AM on July 29, 2011 [1 favorite]


Rtha, I used to live on Skyline, so I could watch it come in from the ocean.
posted by ryanrs at 11:54 AM on July 29, 2011


it reminds me of a beautiful slow motion tsunami.
posted by brinkzilla at 11:58 AM on July 29, 2011


It's 102 outside right now. This and my memories from living in SF were just what I needed to cool off.

Hi, former San Franciscan, writing from Texas. Maybe it's Lucinda Williams' Jackson on iTunes right now, or maybe it's something else, but an indescribable longing and sadness just sort of swept over me, watching that. I miss the fog so much.

I used to sit at the park up at the top of Twin Peaks -- there's a spot where there's a little canyon just south of my old high school -- where you could watch the fog come across the canyon from the west and just engulf you. A thing I particularly miss about a really dense fog is the quiet. Footsteps hardly echo. Being out in the Avenues in a real pea soup at dusk or dawn, with the streetlights making their little cones of light, and the near silence of it all, it's a strong memory I carry with me everywhere.

Can I come home, now?
posted by Devils Rancher at 12:02 PM on July 29, 2011 [5 favorites]


The other weather phenomenon I enjoy here is the fog streaming through the Golden Gate. There was a perfect bank of wet grey coming in yesterday that I could see from the West Oakland BART station.

It's one of the reasons why we live in Downtown Oakland and will never move to Berkeley: that's where it all ends up. Brrrr.
posted by oneirodynia at 12:13 PM on July 29, 2011 [1 favorite]


Heh, now that you mention it, I've also lived at the top of Twin Peaks. Skyline was a lot foggier. It would drip off the redwoods like rain.

It's pretty, but it gets tiresome after a few years. When I moved back to the mountains, I avoided Sky Londa because of the fog. Boulder Creek gets a lot less. Sunny summer afternoons are nice, too.
posted by ryanrs at 12:23 PM on July 29, 2011


Here's a bunch of Golden Gate weather timelapses my friends were passing around a few months ago. A million tons of water a hour pass through the Golden Gate (article written by former Chronicle environmental journalist and author of the excellent Weather of the San Francisco Bay Region, Harold Gilliam).
posted by oneirodynia at 12:23 PM on July 29, 2011 [1 favorite]


Wait, are you saying you think the footage is sped up? It's real time.

yes, it really does that - brings back memories - of course, once it arrives, it's pretty chilly
posted by pyramid termite at 12:33 PM on July 29, 2011


I can't count the number of times I've sat down on the deck to watch nearly this same view from my deck with a beer in the mission after work. Makes the SF weather 100% worth it.
posted by StrangerInAStrainedLand at 12:36 PM on July 29, 2011


I have a pet theory that the massive Old Navy on Market exists only to sell fleece to tourists that didn't check local weather before packing for their visit.

They're getting fleeced!

I'm sorry.
posted by Dr Dracator at 12:50 PM on July 29, 2011 [2 favorites]


Yes, not sped up at all.

I loved living in the mission, going up on the roof and seeings just what this video shows. Some accident of geography and fluid dynamics spares the mission from most of the fog. It is a 3 minute bike ride to go from warm and sunny to damp and cool.

Now I live on a 15th floor near Japantown. My street works as some kind of fog rapids. The fog slowly comes over the hill, like a lazy river, then it all rushes down into my street and flows like rapids, so fast that all the trees are crooked.

I have tried to film it many times, but it never comes out good. Anyone has any tips on filming fog?
posted by Ayn Rand and God at 12:57 PM on July 29, 2011


I love every and any opportunity to link to this:

http://www.snopes.com/quotes/twain.asp

I think it's my favorite "malaprop". I use it for all sorts of situations. (e.g. "You know what they say, The "x" I ever spent was "y" in "z"....") Invariably someone will correct me that "No, that's what Twain said about SF". And I smile to myself.
posted by humboldt32 at 1:13 PM on July 29, 2011






danny the boy: Wait, are you saying you think the footage is sped up? It's real time. Except the end when he reverses it for some reason.


From the link: Footage is set to 2x speed (1x is too slow for the internet's attention)
posted by deadmessenger at 1:13 PM on July 29, 2011 [1 favorite]


Here's another video by a coworker of mine that covers similar material. The waves of fog at 2:02 are particularly great.
posted by lucidprose at 1:14 PM on July 29, 2011 [3 favorites]


My house, most days, around 3pm.
posted by Kafkaesque at 1:27 PM on July 29, 2011


"The coldest winter I ever spent, was a summer in San Francisco."

-Thomas Jefferson
posted by Devils Rancher at 1:31 PM on July 29, 2011


deadmessenger: "From the link: Footage is set to 2x speed (1x is too slow for the internet's attention)"

Yup I was wrong. He added that bit to the description in the last hour :P
posted by danny the boy at 1:37 PM on July 29, 2011


But the fog really does move (almost) that fast...
posted by danny the boy at 1:40 PM on July 29, 2011


"The coldest winter I ever spent, was a summer in San Francisco."
-Thomas Jefferson


Um, no. Not even Mark Twain.
posted by beagle at 1:44 PM on July 29, 2011


OK, I just got the joke.
posted by beagle at 1:45 PM on July 29, 2011


This is what it looks like up atop that ridge.
posted by garethspor at 1:53 PM on July 29, 2011


SF fog is pretty awesome...while you're on the east side. If you live in the Sunset district (as I do) it means wearing flannel in July...it's 68 degrees right now. It gets nicer in late August though.
posted by anigbrowl at 2:02 PM on July 29, 2011


You know? I was just thinking how amazing it is that we live in the future, where I can be simultaneously sitting in midtown Manhattan and watching the fog roll in over San Francisco.
posted by functionequalsform at 2:23 PM on July 29, 2011 [1 favorite]


It's so you can go on BART to buy clothes, I think. Beats taking the bus to Emeryville.

I live in the East Bay but it's still easier for me to get to the massive Old Navy on Market than the one in Emeryville.
posted by madcaptenor at 2:30 PM on July 29, 2011


Also, from my west-facing office window in Berkeley I can see the skyline of downtown SF. And the, somewhere past downtown there is fog. And I laugh at team mostlybeans. Sorry.
posted by madcaptenor at 2:33 PM on July 29, 2011


"The coldest winter I ever spent, was a summer in San Francisco. And whenever I hear the word 'winter' I reach for my revolver. But if you can 't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best when I dance like no one's watching. Freedom!"
— New York Yankee Dwight Gooden

posted by Senor Cardgage at 3:26 PM on July 29, 2011 [1 favorite]


I've shot a couple of these over Crystal Springs reservoir (20 miles south of SF). These past 2 summers have been unusually cold in the bay area and I think the fog banks have been bigger because of it (not that we don't get lots of fog normally). I grew up in fog (Pacifica and Half Moon Bay) and I've always loved watching it roll over the hills.
posted by doctor_negative at 4:20 PM on July 29, 2011 [2 favorites]


Is there another TV tower, anywhere, remotely as cool and distinctive as Sutro Tower? I mean, I can't even afford one but would love to buy a SoMa bike frame just for its logo.
posted by ga4ry at 6:16 PM on July 29, 2011 [2 favorites]


Well, there is the Fernsehturm the movie method of signalling Berlin.* It doesn't evoke nearly the same reaction from me as the Sutro Tower, though. That's the image that says 'Yes, you're in San Francisco' to me more than anything. Which is maybe interesting because it's not what gets used in movies (rather the Golden Gate), but it is what you see coming from SFO, say. (It's the cranes at the port that are my personal signal for Oakland, coincidentally.)

*Though it doesn't appear in Coming Out, the film with the interesting distinction of having its premier as the Berlin Wall fell, meaning a good chunk of the West Berlin press corps were in East Berlin that evening. But it's interesting to me that the Fernsehturm seemingly wasn't the way of signalling Berlin in the DDR. Presumably because people could recognise loads of other things.
posted by hoyland at 6:55 PM on July 29, 2011



Also, from my west-facing office window in Berkeley I can see the skyline of downtown SF. And the, somewhere past downtown there is fog. And I laugh at team mostlybeans. Sorry.


All I could think while watching the video was, "Yeah, it's neat looking, but presumably much more impressive if you don't live here at Chez MostlyBeans." We could basically call that the 6:15 Express here in the Outer Richmond.

In short, yes, my feet have been cold for six years.
posted by mostlymartha at 8:53 PM on July 29, 2011 [4 favorites]



The same thing happens off of the Santa Cruz Mountains west of Palo Alto in the late afternoon. I see it when driving home on 280.

Beautiful.


Yes it's beautiful. It adds to a bit of California flavor to the experience of watching the fog roll over the hills if you remember that you're driving directly over the San Andreas fault.
posted by rdr at 5:43 AM on July 30, 2011


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