Today has been generally shitty.  I think my colleague’s processing of yesterday’s weird call was lot worse than mine, so lots of “Every decision you’ve ever made is wrong.”

That said, today’s post title isn’t metaphorical, but literal.  Right now, my part of the city is inside a cloud.  A stratus cloud to be exact.  [and yes, looking for a silver lining as we speak.]

I’m sitting on my balcony, which sadly isn’t within the cloud, and hearing my neighbor babbling on the phone about how her plans changed because “it is so foggy”.  It took all my restraint not to shout out the title of my post, followed by a brief lecture on the difference between low-lying stratus and fog.

I will show no such restraint for my imaginary readers and my loyal cohort of casino spammers…

Fog forms from the ground up.  It is extremely low level (like person level) and also has the cool characteristic of collecting in hollows and low spots.  Stratus is an actual cloud, which for some reason, has decided to visit us.  It is higher than fog and the area closest to the ground is clear.  It looks especially awesome when it covers the top (but not the bottom) of a building.  Part of the stratus may be low enough to feel at person height (cool/ droplets of moisture), but the visibility isn’t usually obscured at person height locally.  The decrease in visibility is only obvious when looking towards the horizon or at a tall building.  And honestly, it looks more like you are heading in to rain than fog.  The moisture also feels more like a drizzle than the softness of fog.

Satellites cannot tell the difference between fog and low status, so a lot of websites treat them as a single category.  But to the cloud lover (or the fog lover) they are clearly distinct, and each worthy of celebration.