Word.ws English Dictionary

tule fog

/ˈtuːli fɑɡ/

tule fog noun: a thick, persistent ground fog, canonically found in parts of California's Central Valley, where cold air from the Sierra Nevada collects on the valley floor during the cooler part of the year and causes moisture to condense into fog or cold/freezing drizzle.

Noun

tule fog (plural tule fogs)

  1. A thick, persistent ground fog, canonically found in parts of California's Central Valley, where cold air from the Sierra Nevada collects on the valley floor during the cooler part of the year and causes moisture to condense into fog or cold/freezing drizzle.
    • Tule fogs last until they are "burned off" by the sun or are displaced by the wind.1918, School Science and Mathematics, page 751
    • When summer ended—when the State Fair closed and the heat broke, when the last green hop vines had been torn down along the H Street road and the tule fog began rising off the low ground at night—[…]1968, Joan Didion, “Notes from a Native Daughter”, in Slouching Towards Bethlehem

Examples of tule fog in a sentence

  • This sentiment spreads like thick tule fog today.2009, Frances Payne Adler, Debra Busman, Diana Garc’a, Fire and Ink: An Anthology of Social Action Writing, University of Arizona Press...
  • On the evening of the wedding, a thick tule fog enveloped the area around Discovery Bay.2010, William F. Scanlin, No Regrets: I’ve Enjoyed a Great Life, AuthorHouse, →ISBN, page 133:
  • A thick tule fog enveloped the island. […]2011, Marcia Muller, Eye of the Storm, Blackstone Publishing, →ISBN:
  • The winds that create the fog die down, and the Bay Area is clear. […] sank not during the summer fog season, but rather in winter during a thick tule fog.2015, Kyle Boelte, The Beautiful Unseen: A Memoir, Catapult, →ISBN:

Forms of tule fog

pluraltule fogs

Origin of tule fog

Named for the tule wetlands of the Central Valley of California in the United States, where it forms.

Questions about tule fog

What does tule fog mean?
Tule fog means a thick, persistent ground fog, canonically found in parts of California's Central Valley, where cold air from the Sierra Nevada collects on the valley floor during the cooler part of the year and causes moisture to condense into fog or cold/freezing drizzle.
How do you use tule fog in a sentence?
This sentiment spreads like thick tule fog today.
What part of speech is tule fog?
Tule fog is a noun.
How do you pronounce tule fog?
Tule fog is pronounced /ˈtuːli fɑɡ/ (US).
What is the plural of tule fog?
The plural of tule fog is tule fogs.

Words near tule fog in the dictionary

  1. Tulchin
  2. Tulchinsky
  3. Tulchinskys
  4. Tulchyn
  5. tule
  6. tule fog
  7. tule fogs
  8. tule perch
  9. tule shrew
  10. tule shrews
  11. Tulean

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tule fog (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-tule fog.oga.

Cite this entry: “tule fog.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tule_fog. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.