June Gloom Photos

Wednesday, August 12, 2015
Evening Sentinel
I love this palm tree. He's one of a few who live up at the edge of the hills above Santa Barbara keeping watch, as the evening mist rolls in like a gentle fluffy blanket to tuck in the city below. From down there the fog is sometimes called "June Gloom" but from this angle gloom is just about the last word I would use to describe it.

Sunday, May 5, 2013
Butterfly Beach Fog Season
Santa Barbara is always beautiful, to the point that some people think we don't hardly have seasons here. But maybe you just have to look at them a little differently. Winter sunset season just ended, at the beginning of that was butterfly season, when the Monarchs come home to roost. We're now entering fog season. Locals have lots of names for it, most commonly "June Gloom", or before that "May Grey" but the fog is rarely solid and complete as those names make it sound. It's beautiful and wispy, it dances beautifully as it rolls in and out. Sometimes it hugs the coast and the ocean where from inside it may seem grey. But get above or beside it like this and it's an amazing soft blanket hugging the city.

Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Foggy Gull
This is actually an older shot. I was surprised when I looked and found that I had never used it on the photo of the day. The poles in the background are masts of small catamarans that are on the beach for rent. They were not far from where I was standing to take the picture, that gives you an idea how fast and heavy the evening fog was rolling in.

Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Evening Fog
The thing that looks like a large cloud on the
ground between the palm trees and the mountain
is our evening fog. It is caused by the marine
layer. A warm cushion of air from further out in the Pacific
that slides in across the cool coastal waters.
The water is cool here because it follows the pacific currents down the coast from
cold places in the north.
Given the right conditions,
the fog slides in as the sun goes down and will not
leave the beach till around ten in the morning.
Of course, in June, the fog covers the whole city
and only leaves for about ten minutes in the afternoon.
We call that "June Gloom".
As long as you can stay back from, or above it, it
is actually very beautiful. My office at UCSB
used to sit at the perfect point at the limit of the
fog. I could watch it swirl outside my window,
but it never really got to my office.

Saturday, June 18, 2005
Courthouse Bell
I have a customer that was looking for
images of the Courthouse for her father for Father's
day. I have a few that I pulled out to make prints
for her for this weekend.
But, as I was driving home yesterday evening, the colors of
the sunset were particularly golden from
the residual "June Gloom" in the air.
So I stopped by the courthouse and got a few nice images
of which, this one is my favorite. It is a different
angle on a highly recognizable building, and I
will be interested to find out how many
people realized it even had an exposed bell!

Sunday, May 22, 2005
Butterfly Beach Sunset
The weather around here in June is known as
"June Gloom." The fog comes in over the water
before dawn and
we usually don't see the sun
until about 4:00 in the afternoon. Sometimes
the beach is totally covered all day.
There can be a wall of fog right by the beach
that looks thick enough to touch.
The fog in this image is not quite that crazy.
It was an amazing evening. I had to wade pretty far out
in the water to get the angle of the sun behind the trees.
And, I was not really dressed for swimming at the time.