WEST MICHIGAN — All day Tuesday and again all day Wednesday dense fog has stayed locked in place at the immediate lakeshore and out over Lake Michigan. Why? Warmer air over the relatively colder waters of Lake Michigan is condensing out in to low, gray, stratus cloud cover. We call it fog when it occurs at/near the surface.
The image below shows the web camera over Pere Marquette beach in Muskegon. Easy to see the fog
Notice the fog in the image below in South Haven. The camera is looking north/northwest.
The image below is the web camera from Spyglass Condos in Holland. Needless to say…blanketed with fog!
Usually, the strength of the May sun is more than adequate to burn off this layer of fog, but it’s just too dense over the lake. Patchy fog inland last night burned off much easier inland…and we’ll likely see that again overnight in to Thursday morning. That said, a DENSE FOG ADVISORY is in effect for Lake Michigan through 11 A.M. Thursday morning. Mariners will have to deal with reduced visibilities (very low visibility/dense fog in many cases) over the immediate shoreline and over Lake Michigan through Thursday morning. In fact, the fog may have trouble burning off (again) even through the day over the lake.
There are a few locations at the immediate lakeshore that were able to burn the fog off. Note the image of the channel in Muskegon below.
Also Michigan City, Indiana looked nice with it’s blue sky and stark blue water below.
Water temperatures over the lake are generally only in the 40s. The air moving over the lake…what we call warm air advection, is in the 70s creating the marine layer of fog. This should improve over the next few/several days. Get the complete West Michigan forecast at www.fox17online.com/weather.
