Dictionary

tule fog en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /ˈtuːli fɑɡ/ (US)
• (General-American) audio

Etymology

Named for the tule wetlands of the Central Valley of California in the United States, where it forms.

Meanings

1. A thick, persistent ground fog, canonically found in parts of California's Central Valley, where cold air from the Sierra Nevada collects on the valley floor during the cooler part of the year and causes moisture to condense into fog or cold/freezing drizzle.
   • This sentiment spreads like thick tule fog today. Ask the former San Diego mayor who commandeered the Light Up the Border forces at the San Diego-Tijuana[…] 2009, Frances Payne Adler, Debra Busman, Diana Garc’a, Fire and Ink: An Anthology of Social Action Writing, University of Arizona Press, →ISBN, page 195:
   • A thick tule fog enveloped the island. […] 2011, Marcia Muller, Eye of the Storm, Blackstone Publishing, →ISBN:
   • When summer ended—when the State Fair closed and the heat broke, when the last green hop vines had been torn down along the H Street road and the tule fog began rising off the low ground at night—[…] 1968, Joan Didion, “Notes from a Native Daughter”, in Slouching Towards Bethlehem:
   • On the evening of the wedding, a thick tule fog enveloped the area around Discovery Bay. The fog delayed the arrival of the minister and caused some […] 2010, William F. Scanlin, No Regrets: I’ve Enjoyed a Great Life, AuthorHouse, →ISBN, page 133:
   • The winds that create the fog die down, and the Bay Area is clear. […] sank not during the summer fog season, but rather in winter during a thick tule fog. 2015, Kyle Boelte, The Beautiful Unseen: A Memoir, Catapult, →ISBN:
   • Tule fogs last until they are "burned off" by the sun or are displaced by the wind. 1918, School Science and Mathematics, page 751:

Forms