Ticker for January 28, 2004

                
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January 28, 2004   January 28, 2004   January 28, 2004   January 28, 2004



Ticker Confirms It: It's Cold!

Here's a simple graphic that shows the number of hours below freezing
so far this month, along with the lowest temperature "achieved":




Ice Fog, Frost and Riming in the Salt Lake Valley

Yesterday's Ticker mentioned a recently-survived 5,400-mile sojourn
through much of the American West. Two of those days featured a
beautiful ice fog/frost/riming episode, known in some environs as
"pogonip", in the Salt Lake Valley.

Oklahomans don't see ice fog or riming very often. So, when the
Entire Ticker Staff encountered a very shallow, extremely cold, and
synoptically stubborn airmass in the Salt Lake Valley, we were amazed.

Here are a few pictures and descriptions of what we saw ...

A blurry pic (they get better) of a fruit tree in an Ogden parking
lot. We thought this was extraordinary, but the next 12 hours would
put this image to shame:


The same tree, closer up. Notice the preferred development of ice
on the windward side of the branches. The wind was light, but
noticable and consistent. The direction and magnitude varied
throughout the valley.


A few miles north, the icing habit was noticably different, and long
needles became the preferred deposition pattern. Some of these
needles were more than an inch long:


The Ticker Staff finally gave into the fog and stopped at a small
motel in Tremonton, Utah. This is our side view mirror after about
an hour of driving (slowly) in the ice fog:


The scene outside the motel the next morning was spectacular. These
trees aren't covered in snow. They're covered in frost! Notice the
frost development all over each branch. This suggests that the winds
were calm (which they were). Also, the habit is unmistakably dendritic
(as opposed to the needles we saw near SLC). The following three
pictures show the trees in increasing detail.




Coming in future Tickers: Wyoming cap clouds and Arizona downbursts!