Saturday morning was overcast after an early morning light rain. Off in the distance we could see where the large Georgia Power Plant Bowen stacks stand. Bowen is one of the largest coal-fired power plants in North America.
Coal-fired power plants are almost always located on rivers because they use the river water for cooling. The Etowah River flows past the plant and then on through Rome, where it meets the Oostanaula River to form the Coosa River. If you look carefully at this photo, you can see where the river flows.
The river has another river right above it, formed by advection fog. Advection fog is usually formed by warm, humid air flowing over something that is cooler, causing some of the water vapor to condense into fog. The fog is the faint, thin, lighter line slightly under the mid-point of the image. The river is 20 to 25 miles from our house.
Many years ago when my family moved into our new house, our living room looked over fields and low hills towards the same river as it neared town. The river was probably less than two miles from our house. We often saw fog over the river then. In the more than 40 years since, the short pines in the back yard grew up and now tower over the house, completely blocking the view.
Love seeing that view there. I had to google advection fog to see if it was similar to our radiation fog (ground fog) we get here. Interestingly the difference is that advection fog can happen even when it’s windy. I love learning something new! Thank you for this.
Robin — I wish I had some images of the fog over the river taken from my parents’ house.
We often get “fog” when it’s windy, but of course it’s really just clouds that are lower than the top of the mountain.