The Marine Layer.
Living here, we all know what that means/is. When the news weatherperson mentions 'marine layer' we get it. It is a thick mass of cool, moist air that accumulates over the ocean. It is caused by a temperature 'inversion', which means that the air close to the ground is cool and the air that comes in above it is warmer. This warmer air presses down on the cooler air forcing it back down so it can't go anywhere. It hovers over the horizon of the ocean waiting for the evening temperatures to cool on the land and then it drifts on in.
Foggy and often with some drizzle.
The fog can last until the middle of the day when the heat of the sun is finally warm enough to evaporate it or pushes it back out to sea.
This is what we locals call "May Gray" and "June Gloom". Sometimes, it never warms up enough and stays that way all day during this time of year.
To illustrate:
This is about 7:30am from our backyard.
You can see the blue sky and then the thick blanket of fog. The sun is up, the temps are getting warmer, and so it pushes the fog bank out towards the ocean again.
Now, when I went to bed last night, it was so thick you couldn't see our backyard fence when I let the dog out.
Look at the shadow of our house. This is about 9am. See how the 'bank' continues to move on out of there.
Aha. You can barely see the house shadow in the very bottom left corner. This is now around 10:30ish. Look how the marine layer just keeps on going.
This accounts for so much of the moisture in our air. Moisture is good! It helps keep things green and lush, and also helps keep our skin more supple and not as dry and wrinkly as other areas with dryer air. Now, on the other hand, when it gets really hot in the summer, oh the humidity ruins the best of hair-do's! Like on my wedding day--May 5th--(see, May Gray. It didn't burn off until late that afternoon, thus my hair was flat, straight and a wreck.) Or if you have even the slightest bit of bend in your hair, it will curl and frizz up. Christine has a little bit of natural curl. Once when she was younger and had been at soccer practice, she came home and couldn't tame the ringlets framing her face. So she found the scissors and cut them off! What a surprise awaited both of us when the humidity left and the personal trim job manifested itself!
I just thought I'd share for my journal.
Tell me about where you live...
(Got some more flowers planted in the front yard, so now that is done. I can start on the back yard next week. Not too much to do there. I picked off 18 cutworms from my red geraniums this morning. Dang them. And they are smart little buggers, changing colors to what part of the plant they have eaten: bud, flower, or leaf. I had to look hard. But I felt victorious as I squished them in the paper towel! Stay away from my flowers, will ya! Everyone was gone tonight except Adrianne and I. We ate roast chicken dinner together and watched Wheel of Fortune. Duff and Mike still at work, Christine at her last lacrosse practice for the season, until summer league starts, Shaun off at the movies with friends, and Josh and Mere headed for Disneyland for some dinner and a few rides after work. There was a big snafu with Christine's yearbook over a transportation fee that we have now paid twice. Long story, so she will get it tomorrow. John loves the phone now and will talk to me (in his baby language) for quite some time. It's so funny. Just like he is having a real conversation. I will say something and then he answers it in dadadalalala. Then stops and waits for me to say something else and then he jabbers away again. He won't even be 7 months until next week. I told Nats yesterday to watch out: he's gonna keep them hopping he is so advanced at everything. They have nothing to compare it to since he is their first, but the things he does are very early for his age.)
