Broome Disappears Into Thick Fog as Western Australia’s Wet Season Nears

Broome vanished beneath a thick blanket of fog this week, with visibility falling below 50 metres and the town’s familiar morning sounds disappearing with it.

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When I woke up, it was suspiciously quiet out there; normally you can hear aircraft taking off where I live.

At Cable Beach, residents described yacht masts sticking out of the fog as the sun rose. Hilary Wilkins said the scene felt unusually quiet because she could not hear aircraft taking off near her home. She drove to the beach with her dog and found fog dripping from the roof.

As she walked along the beach, Wilkins saw what she called a “fog bow,” a rainbow-like arc formed as blue sky showed through the fog. She hoped to capture a photograph with her dog in the middle of it. Another resident, Jane Meade, said visibility while walking her dogs fell to about 30 metres and described the beach as eerie because almost nothing could be seen.

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As I walked down the beach there was this really cool, what I call a fog bow, it’s literally like a rainbow, but with the blue sky coming through the fog.

Jonathan How, a senior forecaster with the Bureau of Meteorology, said fog forms when moisture levels are high and night temperatures fall. The bureau classifies conditions as fog when visibility drops below 300 metres, while greater visibility is considered mist.

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It’s really eerie because with the fog being so thick, you can stand on the beach and not actually see anything.

The fog fell below 50 metres at Broome Airport and lasted nine hours, extending across Broome toward the Dampier Peninsula. How said the conditions were typical for this time of year and indicated that humidity was beginning to rise as the wet season approached. He urged people to drive according to conditions and take precautions. The weather also marked a shift in Broome’s traditional Yawuru seasonal cycle.

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Hopefully everyone enjoyed the dry season because the humidity is really starting to pick up.