Past IEM Features tagged: visibility

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Visibility Climatology

23 Aug 2022 05:30 AM
Patchy dense fog has been present over Iowa these past few mornings. The featured chart presents a climatology of visibility reports from the Des Moines Airport being less than a mile by hour of the day and week of the year. While frequencies are small, the hours around sunrise this time of year have a slightly elevated frequency versus recent summer months. This time of year features increasingly longer nights allowing for more cooling and near surface moisture from mature vegetation that combine to allow temperatures to reach 100% humidity and fog to form. The decrease in wind speed as well also contributes as less mixing happens in the lower atmosphere.

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Tags:   visibility  

Visibility Frequencies

09 Mar 2010 06:13 AM
With a good portion of the state stuck in dense fog for the past few days, the featured chart looks at the hourly frequencies by month having observed visibilities below one mile for Des Moines. The largest values are shown during the morning hours in winter time and another maximum late summer just after sunrise. Overall frequencies are higher during the winter time due to the occurrence of visibility limiting snow fall.

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Tags:   climate   visibility