Pogonip Frosts Reno

We awoke to a blanket of pogonip Monday morning. It looks like fog at first glance, but it's a little more than ground-level clouds. Pogonip is freezing fog and it puts a layer of frosty ice on just about everything. While it can put beautiful ice crystals on plants and trees, it also makes for slippery driving conditions, not to mention the limited visibility.

A combination of high humidity and freezing temperatures, which is what we have in Reno right now, leads to pogonip formation. Pogonip is a Shoshone word meaning "cloud," but the early settlers decided it meant "white death," a real possibility in pioneer days if people got lost in the murk.

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