Fog is one of Mother Nature's gental phenomenon. Sure it lowers visibility, slowing down travel, but thats about it. However, there was a bizzar encounter this morning as power outages were reported in several counties in central Texas. Widespread power outages were reported in Bell, McLennan, Falls and Hill counties as 60 power poles caught fire. This all happened due to fog as visibilities were below 1 mile and in some cases below 1/8 of a mile.
Following a conversation with the Fort Worth National Weather Service office, their insight was quite amazing. In order for this to occur, there are two main ingredients. One, the obvisous, thick widespread fog. Two, a drought striken area.
During a prolonged drought, small bits of dirt and dust collect on power lines and power poles. As fog rolls in, tiny water droppletts attach to the dirt and dust. As this occurs, the dry dirt turns to a pasty mud. Mud acts as a conductor and allows electricity that flows from the wires to the poles, which in turn, over heats the power poles and sparks fires.
So yes, fog can create destruction, but this is a rare event. Back in 2011 Corpus Christi had widespread outages due to fog, and the same happened to Austin in 2009.
What a wild world of weather we live in.
For more news and weather you can log onto: www.facebook.com/plushnickweather or www.facebook.com/KAGSTV. You can also check out our twitter feeds: @KAGSweather and @KAGSnews. Furthermore, you can download our new weather app. Search: KAGS Weather, in the Apple App Store or Google Play for Android.
No comments:
Post a Comment