White smoke coming from the Alps

I've been staring out of my window for the longest time and haven't been able to figure it out. It looks like some of the Alps (to the southeast) have a white, fluffy halo-type thing enveloping them. If any of you can see it too, I'd appreciate guesses.



[edit] Added picture. You can see the fluff!

Jah say, I and I clean da window, mon.

Thanks for the photo, much easier to decipher those smoke signals now. It says: "Stop staring, are you German or something?"

Sugar.
It's the only logical explanation.

Maybe the Giant Marshmallow Man is on his way here?

Hopefully something delicious will come out of this.

Temperature inversion. That is fog!

Fog? How disappointing - science seems to ruin everything cool =(

Maybe that's the thingy Germans refer to as the Föhn/draft? It's no wonder why they're staring and keep the windows shut at all times; they're traumatized.

No, it doesn't happen that often and that is a pretty cool shot. Wait till one happens here for like a week. Fog everyday, all day. Spooky it is.

Much cooler when it happens in the winter and you get frozen sheets of ice about 10 feet off the ground around every tree. Now that is spooky.

Really? I thought the thread got way cooler as soon as eurovol said "temperature inversion", ooh I love that kinda sciencey talk. (My favourite one for this week though is "abyssal plain".)
So, temperature inversion... is that how fog is normally formed or, going by your last post.. is it a föhn?

Fog happens at the interface between two temps. That is why you get morning dew and why you can save your ass in the dessert constructing a condensation collector. And for you laymen, that is why your glass of beer gets sweaty.

Clouds form at an altitude where it really cools off. When it is cooler nearer the ground than above, then you get fog. That is why fog happens in the mornings as well as morning dew. If you grew up on a lake, then you know that in the summer fog appears on the lake at dusk (the sun is no longer heating the surface) as the water stays cold and the air above it remains warm.

I always thought the water stayed warmer than the air/land as hasn't it got a higher specific heat capacity than the others so retains heat better?

The Föhn is not a draught. its when exceptionally air comes to Munich from the mountains rather than heading towards the mountains.
And there seems to be some scientifica basis to its wirdness inducing properties:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fohn

Yeah, I think I said that backwards.

They've elected a new pope.

woohoo! I just out-scienced mr science. And without googling bad doggie stylie!

Don't get to excited, I am trying to remember back to 8th grade Earth Science (I think that you are a little closer to that than me ). What I am thinking is that at dusk, the surface of the water is warmer than the air and fog appears (temperature inversion). In the morning, the cold ground cools the air that then cruises over the lake and creates fog although the water is now quite a bit colder.
I think where I got confused was the difference in running water and still water (the river that I grew up on was "running" most of the week). Mountain streams don't create fog because they always stay to damn cold.

All this science fluff is just a lame attempt at ignoring the obvious: The Alps are pure evil! After all, they've made Marshmallow Man emigrate to the US.

You are all wrong, it's Mrs. Mountain Giant being a good Hausfrau and airing the eiderdowns on the balcony. That's the kind of thing you know after 30+ years in Bavaria.

I figured it was just the Happy Hippy out for a stroll in the hills.

I reckon it's the friend of the black smoke thing in Lost. I heard it's been looking for its companion for years but can't find it.

Arhhh It's the ANTI-FÖHN

Run for your lives...

Its it ORAGRAPHIC cloud? See also...

white smoke from the direction of the Vatican can only mean that a new pope has been chosen

you are all wrong , it is obviously those Pot smoking deer having a toot...