Fog in August
Fog in August forms when clear late-summer nights cool damp valley air, and an old rhyme counted each foggy morning as a snowfall to come. On farms it meant getting ready for winter while the days were still hot.
What it may mean
A weather rhyme printed in 1903 ran: "So many fogs in August we see, so many snows that year will be." Whatever its record as a forecast, it shows where people's minds were in high summer. On farms, August was when winter got made: wood split and stacked, beans dried, jars sealed, hay in the loft. A gray morning over the creek meant thinking about January while the afternoons were still hot. Much of what makes a hard season bearable gets done in an easy one, from money set aside for a lean month to the friendships kept up when nobody needs anything. August fog burns off by mid-morning and leaves a warm, bright day, and the rhyme asks you to spend a little of that warmth on later.
Depending on how you saw it
Steam rising off a lake
On cool August mornings, lakes and rivers that soaked up summer heat give it back as fog, which rises off the water like smoke from a kettle. The water holds its warmth long after the air has cooled. What warmth from earlier in the year are you still drawing on?
Fog climbing a mountain
A New England saying printed in 1903 went: "When the fog goes up the mountain hoppin', then the rain comes down the mountain droppin'." Local weather lore was built from years of watching one valley. Which weather saying where you live has turned out right more often than you expected?
Silver veils over a meadow
In Bohemia, the silvery mists that rise over meadows were not seen as clouds at all, but as veils worn by forest women dancing in the moonlight. Fog over a summer field still looks staged. Which ordinary sight near you would make a good story if you let it?
Why it happens in nature
Late-summer fog forms on clear, calm nights when the ground loses heat quickly and the moist air just above it cools to its dew point, especially in valleys and over rivers and lakes still warm from summer. Once the sun climbs and warms the ground, the fog thins and burns off, often by mid-morning.
What folk beliefs say
New England
A New England weather saying ran: "When the fog goes up the mountain hoppin', then the rain comes down the mountain droppin'."
Source: Cora Linn Daniels; C. M. Stevans (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World, vol. 2 (1903), vol. 2, p. 949. View the page
Bohemia
In Bohemia, the hovering clouds of mist that rise over meadows were taken not for clouds but for the silvery veils of the "forest women" dancing by moonlight.
Source: Cora Linn Daniels; C. M. Stevans (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World, vol. 2 (1903), vol. 2, p. 949. View the page
Labrador
In Labrador, fog was said to be caused by a white bear drinking too much water and bursting.
Source: Cora Linn Daniels; C. M. Stevans (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World, vol. 2 (1903), vol. 2, p. 949. View the page
To reflect on
What are you doing in this easy season that you will be glad of in a hard one?