Updated ,first published
A thick layer of fog blanketed Melbourne on Thursday morning, triggering warnings for motorists and creating eerie scenes in the city.
Bureau meteorologist Daniel Sherwin-Simpson said parts of regional Victoria had experienced fog this thick in the previous week, and Thursday was Melbourne’s turn before it began to clear about 10am.
“It is starting to clear, but there is still fog in Greensborough and Eltham (north-east of the CBD) and some patchy fog in the south-west,” he said.
Sherwin-Simpson said the fog was hanging around the Mornington and Bellarine peninsulas and some coastal parts of the south-east, but had dissipated around Melbourne Airport.
He said the fog would next lift over inner south-west areas such as Laverton, Altona and Williamstown.
“What we’re seeing today is what we call a radiation fog. As we head into the night, the atmosphere cools down and it radiates heat up into space and the air cools down.
“So while the moisture in the atmosphere doesn’t change, the temperature goes down, and we see humidity nearing 100 per cent. That’s when fog starts to develop,” he said.
Though the morning was cold, no temperature records were set. Ferny Creek in the Dandenong Ranges reached an overnight low of 0.2 degrees; while this was a record low, data at that weather station only goes back 15 years. The bureau prefers a 30-year period to establish a dataset reliable enough to confer records.
The bureau is also warning drivers in Melbourne that the fog will make driving more dangerous.
“Slow down and drive carefully,” said the bureau in an alert on Thursday morning. “Leave more space between you and the vehicle in front. It takes longer to stop on wet, slippery roads.”
On Monday, Melbourne observed its coldest day of the year, dropping to 3.2 degrees. Within the same 24-hour period, Mount Hotham had its warmest-ever July day.
The bureau put this down to a “temperature inversion” in the atmosphere.
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