Gas Mileage? Diesels?

[Bamby]

I'd bet there are a lot of things you take for granted as a fact of life that would endanger folks from a more moderate climate. I know even here when it gets bad there's enough to contend with. I for instance put a snowmobile suit and pack boots in the vehicle when there's a blow. Though I've not been in trouble myself they've been handy to put on to help others. And a few times people have stuck there cars and left them leaving me afoot too. Course I believe everyone should be prepared should they be left afoot and looking for warmth somewhere.

 

[Lyndon]

So FOGTENDER, what is that, like a sheep hearder for FOG? Why don't you tell the nice folks down in the lower 48 about ICE FOG. They don't get much of that down in the 'Lower 48' but it's indigious to Faribanks. I'm on the North Slope, where it's about 26 below, but Fogtender is 500 miles South of me in central Alaska where it really gets cold. It's probably 50 below there right now, and North Pole, 7 miles East of Fairbanks is always 5 degrees colder. These places are like the "Cold Capital" of North America!

 

[Snowcat Operations]

Pogonip!! At least thats what we call it here in Nevada. Pogonip is fog in sub zero weather. Its pretty amazing stuff! Im sure its a pain in the ass if your dealing with it daily. Anyway Pogonip forms on anything that the water particles touch. So a strand of Barbwire can be 12" in diameter. Phone lines, towers, trees, bushes. Anything the fog touches. The ice crystles look amazing upon close inspection. I once came off of a summit into a bank of fog covering the entire valley. Above it looked like a blanket of cotten candy. As I dropped into the stuff I was amazed how everything was white. The road the trees, fences everything. I pulled over and looked at the barbwire fence. The single starnd of barbed wire was 12" in diameter! I now carry a camera everywhere I go.

 

[Snowcat Operations]

Im sure Pogonip is an Indian name given to the freezing fog.

 

[fogtender]

So FOGTENDER, what is that, like a sheep hearder for FOG?

No, when I use to work on lighthouses, they tend the fog...

Why don't you tell the nice folks down in the lower 48 about ICE FOG. They don't get much of that down in the 'Lower 48' but it's indigious to Faribanks. I'm on the North Slope, where it's about 26 below, but Fogtender is 500 miles South of me in central Alaska where it really gets cold. It's probably 50 below there right now, and North Pole, 7 miles East of Fairbanks is always 5 degrees colder. These places are like the "Cold Capital" of North America!

The outside temp this evening is a balmy -48.

Where I am at, we don't get the Ice Fog like Fairbanks does unless we get down to -50 or colder. In Fairbanks, you can't see but a few feet when it gets down below thirty below zero. All the buses have to have strobes on them, not that you can see them, but you can see the flash of light in the fog, which can be about the same time you are sucking the exhaust pipe from the bus...

When the ice fog lifts though, everything is covered with a few inches of "Hoar Frost" and makes it look like some kind of ice crystal world, it is really beautiful. In the event that you are dumb enough to stand under a tree and hit it, the frost comes down and you are covered with a foot or two of frosty snow...

If you go up on the hills around Fairbanks, you can see clear sky and not the town. Before electronic approaches, the airplanes used to line up with KFAR's radio tower that stuck up out of the fog, and let down to find the runway... Not something that I would enjoy doing either...

This is what a standard winter day in Fairbanks looks like with the power plants putting up steam in the exhaust at sub zero temps.

The hoar frost on the trees

Nice balmy day...

And when it lifts, it looks like this all over town...

 

[Lyndon]

***GREAT Post!!, good picts too!