h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This is striking because the eye is drawn past the men to the lake, which appears to be steaming.

Is it just a morning mist rising?

I wonder where the picture was taken? I assume that it's somewhere in Alaska, but Alaska'a big state.

The picture is of Smith Mountain Lake in Virginia about 40 miles south of Roanoke. It got voted best Black & White in an old photo website back about 2006 0r 2007

The lake is warmer than the air, so you can see the mist (water vapor?) rising off the lake in the early morning.

I called the picture "misty morning" when I submitted it to the defunct website.

allow me to correct myself...as they unfairly slander my fair State of Florida, "It's not the heat, it's the humidity".

As the humidity rises to 100%, the air has a diminishing capacity to hold on to all the water that is evaporating -- due to the heat of the water in the lake -- and so the water almost immediately condenses into mist as it rises from the lake.

or both...the lake has to be warm to evaporate water...I hate science...and the air has to be humid hor the evaporated water to turn to mist...

I get you - it's a natural phenomenon. It knows why it does that, so you don't have to.

That's okay.I wasn't wondering.

Actually, I feel kind of smug about learning about why and what is mist after ignoring that issue for so many years...thanks for asking......Fog must be similar...

Wait, they taught me in navigator school that fog is a low-flying cloud...the questions are:
1. What is a cloud?
2. Why do clouds fly at different altitudes?

Clouds form when the air cools below the dew point, and the air can not hold as much water vapor. Clouds are made of water droplets or ice crystals

The key parameter that determines the altitude of clouds is called “the dew point” combined with ground temperature. If the temperature at the ground is equal or lower than the dew point there is likely to be ground fog, i.e. the base of the cloud is at ground level...

I seem to recall from navigator training that the atmosphere tends to be 2 degrees Centigrade cooler for every 1.000 feet of altitude gained...

Cooler air holds less water vapor so the dew point is at a lower temperature as you go up, on the other hand, thinner air supports smaller water droplets so there is a sort of an upper limit on cloud formation...

Cumulonimbus clouds and the Hurricanes that contain them have extreme upward and downward air currents. The rapidly changing dew point will precipitate a lot of water from clouds that can no longer hold the water droplets...

Once, while flying over the Pribilof Island at 8,000 feet at sunrise we were between cloud layers...it was an incredible ethereal display of pink and purple cotton candy..if only I had a camera...memory will have to dew...(that pun's for Paul)

Did you ever get turned around and fly upside down? I remember reading a story where that happened, and I wondered.

No...but we had a plastic instrument for measuring angles on a map...the numbers on the instrument had both the angle and the reciprocal (270 degrees and 90 degrees, for example).

Coming south out of Denver in the early morning, I wanted to turn toward California, so I told the pilot to take up a heading of 090.

I was puzzled about the disappearance of the Rocky Mountains...The pilot kept asking if I had any extra maps because the sun in his eyes was blinding...

Mrs. Phred calls me "Wrong-Way" when we argue about directions..it's fair.

Dmitri,

I have forgotten both the username and the password to my olf Phred Firecloud account. They both have the same e-mail address.

So I've lost having my edited entries on the new "MY Space".

Any possibility that someone could help with that...or is it never done?

No, it's not technically possible to 'transfer' entries to a PS.

But you could write to moderators-at-h2g2-dot-com and ask for help to get into that account.

Wrong-way Peter Peachfuzz was noted for flying upside down and backwards. So was Zelig, for that matter.

??? How does one fly backward?

Dmitri,

Thanks...I just wanted to go back to living in the old space...I may contact the moderators at some point...

Peter peahfuzz

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Peachfuzz

I knew it was impossible to fly backward in the real world...Thanks...

Harrier jets, autogyros, and helicopters fly can fly backward to some extent...never say never...