Lose yourself in a world of creeping sea mist and mysterious booming sounds, but beware the luring ‘white women’
Images by Laura Pashby
niflheim
Means ‘World of Fog’ and is one of the Nine Worlds of Norse mythology.
larry
A land fog that moves down the estuary at Teignmouth, as distinguished from a sea fog moving up the river.
camanchaca
A creeping fog that forms on the coast of Chile, then moves inland in the form of immense cloud banks. In the Atacama desert, one of the driest places on Earth, fog catchers capture water droplets from the fog to irrigate crops.
mistpouffer
A mysterious booming sound that can he heard over the ocean in quiet, foggy weather. Derives from the Dutch mistpoeffer, which translates as ‘fog swelling’.
karl
Yes, San Francisco’s famous fog is named Karl and it has its own Twitter and Instagram accounts.
witte wieven
A low-flowing mist. Translates from Dutch as ‘white women’ – according to local folklore, the ‘white women’ lure people to follow them, who are then lost forever.
pea souper
Also known as the Great Smog of London, this was a severe air-pollution smog that disrupted the city in December 1952, when many homes had coal fires. The particles of soot gave the smog a yellowish tinge, hence the nickname.
roke
An East Yorkshire word for sea fog, believed to derive from the Swedish röka, meaning smoke.
haar
A thick sea fog and fine drizzle that creeps inland from the North Sea to the east coast of Scotland and northeast England
