Rolling fog adds ‘icy’ caps to Newfoundland mountains

Weather can create some really cool visual effects, and a great example was uploaded to YouTube yesterday, showing fog rolling over the Long Range Mountains, near Lark Harbour, on west coast of the Island of Newfoundland, and making them look like a snow-capped stretch of the Rocky Mountains!

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What's happening here is that fog has formed in the harbour and in the inlet just on the other side of the mountains (you can see the thick fog off to the left at around 5 seconds into the video). Fog forms when humid air near the ground is cooled to the point where it condenses out the water vapour in it.

With a light sea breeze blowing in off the water, this is forcing the fog up the far side of the mountain, causing it to cool further and give up more water vapour, thus forming the thicker layer of fog/cloud at the top of the mountain (the 'icy' cap). As the wind continues on down the side of the mountain closest to the camera, the air has not only dumped the majority of its water vapour, but its also warming up, thus causing the fog to form those wispy 'rivers' until they disappear near the bottom.

Cool stuff!

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