It's been foggy here in downtown Vancouver for about a week now. It sometimes clears for an hour or two at a time, and the fog shifts in heavy and light pockets around buildings, but we've mostly just been socked-in. This has led to many weird sounds!
Just after midnight one night we were being kept awake by someone pounding plastic buckets. When I got up to find out what was happening I saw a man in the loading docs of the building across the alley from us pounding at these buckets - probably to empty them. I yelled at him to stop the noise - and he heard me! I don't have a booming voice and he was half a dozen stories below me! He said something like sorry, and I heard him! It was like we were in the same room!
We are very close to the water in the Straight of Georgia and Coal Harbour which has many ships sailing into it. We've heard fog horns sounding many times... but there have been many times that we've noticed that we don't hear any fog horns! I'm sure they've been going almost constantly for a week now but we don't always hear them.
There seems to be more police around during this fog - which makes sense, when you can't see more than a block in front of you, you know people can be doing illegal things almost anywhere - and probably are. The sirens from the police cars are either incredibly LOUD or tiny little sounds even when they speed by!
Fog is cool (downright cold, actually) and it really distorts sound.
I've been surfing around the web looking at fog related items. It seems that fog is quite the subject to study for people interested in sound. I just gotta say, wow. I grew up on the prairies so ocean related weather is fascinating for me.
This is a neat link - Open Source Audio has recordings of fog horns on Ferries going through Howe Sound from Bowen Island.
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