Impressive though the Shanghai-Nanjing Expressway is (opened 1996) the Zhenjiang branch section does suffer from an occasional meteorological drawback. In the form of ‘Dumpling Fog’.
Prompting Yan Mingliang and colleagues at the Key Laboratory of Meteorological Disaster of Ministry (of Education), Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, China, to attempt an algorithmic emulation of the problem using the Weather Research and Forecasting Model for version 2.2 and a digital elevation model in ArcGIS9.3.
“The results were showed as follows: The numerical simulations of a dumpling fog event indicated that: (1) The Zhenjiang section of the Shanghai-Nanjing Expressway bas been easy to appearing some dumpling fog weathers. The beneficial engendering conditions of a dumpling fog event were the stable atmospheric environment, the ground surface radiation cooling at night, and the cooling of the warm and wet flow from the southern regions moved through the cooler ground surface. (2) When two branches of airflows from the different directions of the north and south converged in the western part of the Expressway, it was favorable to the standstill of wet air and aerosol particles and it also was one of the main reasons for the developing and maintaining of the dumpling fog weather. (3) The dumpling fog dissipated rapidly when short-wave radiation warmed the air closed to the ground after sunrise. (4) The sensitivity tests of terrain and water system displayed that the distribution of terrains and landforms in the fog area were sensitive to the – – formation of dumpling fog “
See:
(Information Science and Engineering (ICISE), 2010 2nd International Conference on Date of Conference: 4-6 Dec. 2010)
NOTE: Despite our best endeavours, Improbable has run into trouble trying to pin down the exact nature of Dumpling Fog. Can any readers help clear it up?