Record Breaking Fog Blankets Iowa

This one is going to go down in the history books...

You know that thing that people say that if you don't like the weather in Iowa, just wait five minutes?

Well, it seems like the entire month of January has seen almost every single type of winter weather imaginable. From blizzard-like conditions, bitterly cold temperatures, and now intense fog.

According to reports, 90 million people across the United States have been affected by dense fog towards the tail end of the week.

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Record Breaking Fog

The National Weather Service issued a record breaking 1,107 dense fog advisories all across the continental United States on Tuesday, January 23rd.

According to Daryl Herzmann, who works for the Iowa State Department of Agronomy, this is the largest number of advisories of this kind that have been issued by the NWS since October of 2005.

Or at least it was...

...until just a day later.

The very next day, another foggy record was broken when the officials from the National Weather Service issued 1,341 dense fog advisories. And then, on Thursday January 25th the record was broken AGAIN.

1,517 zones in the U.S. had those fog advisories sent out.

What Is A Dense Fog Advisory?

According to the standards set by the National Weather Service, a "dense fog advisory" is "issued when widespread fog is expected to reduce visibilities to 1/4 mile or less over a large area for an extended period of time (2 or more hours)."

Just How Bad Was this Fog Here in Eastern Iowa?

According to a recent news report, the fog was so dense and heavy that multiple flights out of the Eastern Iowa airport in Cedar Rapids were either cancelled or delayed.

Almost the entire Hawkeye State was under a Dense Fog Advisory starting on January 24th. Initially the most Northeastern part of the state went without the fog, but a day or two into this national weather event, it spread to those areas as well.  

How Long Will It Last?

According to a report from our weather partners at KCRG, the fog will remain with us for some time. This is partly due to the temperatures sort of settling slightly above freezing. However, there is a bit of a silver lining...

...literally.

This fog is set to not be as dense as it has been over the past few days. Also, reports are predicting it should essentially clear out by the morning of Saturday, January 27th.

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