Published March 2, 2024 at 1:42 p.m
It is one of the main meteorological causes of traffic accidents. Fog should not be underestimated. It could cause problems from Saturday evening to Sunday morning. Forecast.
A cloud on the ground
Fog. It's a bit like a cloud, a kind of stratus, but at ground level. It occurs when the air contains a lot of moisture in the form of water vapor. When it cools down significantly, the water vapor begins to condense and tiny floating water droplets form. When there is a good wind, these droplets are distributed and often even dry out. However, the wind will remain very calm during the night from Saturday to Sunday. The formation of fairly dense fog is therefore very likely.
An insidious danger
Fog is very useful for filming horror films, but it is an insidious enemy for drivers. The microscopic droplets that make it up scatter light and form a haze as they accumulate. Reduced visibility is when we can no longer see an object less than 800 meters away. If this value falls below 200 meters, it is referred to as “zero visibility”. Please note that “zero visibility” does not necessarily mean you can see 200 meters, but rather 200 meters or less. Nuance is key. In very dense fog, visibility can be less than 50 meters.
A matter of seconds
If we travel at 100 km/h, we cover 200 meters in 7 seconds. If reaction time is taken into account, it takes almost 100 m to stop a vehicle traveling at this speed with cold tires. There is very little room to maneuver to avoid an object, vehicle or person that can only be seen 150 meters away. If visibility is less than 100 m, an impact is inevitable.
dense fog
And this will potentially be the case in several sectors of southern Quebec between Saturday evening and Sunday morning. There is a risk of dense fog for the entire Outaouais, the Laurentians, Lanaudière, Mauricie, Montreal, Montérégie, Estrie and Beauce. There is a risk of fog or less dense fog in Abitibi-Témiscamingue, Saguenay, Bas-Saint-Laurent and Chaudières-Appalaches.
Caution
When driving on the roads in these areas from early Saturday evening through Sunday morning, it is very important to reduce speed significantly, exercise patience and remain vigilant. In addition to a loss of visibility, fog can cause the road to become wet and therefore less grippy. And according to CAA-Quebec, you should avoid using emergency flashers when driving in fog.
In collaboration with Nicolas Lessard, meteorologist