To make a long story short, I just found out that some flights are diverting to Los Angeles, and flightradar24.com shows almost no activity over the city’s air space, except for a helicopter flying all over the place.
What’s up, if anything?
The FAA website says that there is a “Traffic Management Program” currently in place, due to fog.
I looked at my airplane finder app and there aren’t any commercial airplanes flying there. Planes are grounded and did not seem to be moving.
I wonder what’s up?
Thanks. That makes total sense now.
My sister lives a few miles from the airport, and I was concerned for her safety. I feel much relieved.
Here’s what I saw.
Aah, fog. Makes sense.
The NWS site for the San Diego airport currently says that both the air temperature and the dew point are at 56F (so, 100% relative humidity), with no wind at all, and visibility there is only 0.12 miles.
https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=32.7304&lon=-117.1953#.YaWzPLpMFPY
Evening fog is a pretty common occurrence in coastal San Diego. The sun goes down, the cool air from the Pacific rushes in, and visibility drops off pretty quickly.
Living by the beach as a kid I got pretty used to hearing the fog horn on the OB pier blowing most mornings before the marine layer burned off. If anything, foggy mornings were preferable to clear mornings - it was always colder on clear mornings and my hands would go numb during my morning bike ride to school.
I came home yesterday from a visit to San Diego, and I can confirm that on Sunday night the fog bank that rolled in a half-hour before sunset was massive and impenetrable.
Growing up in San Diego, I had flights home diverted to LA many times. Sometimes we would rent a car and drive the rest of the way, or the airline would put us in a hotel overnight until the next morning’s clearing.
I should add that my sister lives on a hilltop, so maybe the fog didn’t affect her neighborhood all that much.
I consulted with the band, America. Here was their take:
Ain’t it foggy outside?
All the planes have been grounded.
[as a guy who spend half his life in San Diego … “Yep” to what everybody else already said: not at all uncommon in SD. Really common in San Francisco (OhByTheWay)]