Our word autumn comes from the Latin word autumnus, meaning “to turn”. Fall is the alternative word for the season, and its origin has been traced to the Old English word fellan, meaning "to fall from a height". Back in the 16th Century, in England, this term came to denote the season with expressions such as “the fall of the leaf” and “the fall of the year”.
In Pennsylvania, October is a month of warm days and cool nights. During this month, the trees shut off their food supply to their leaves, allowing the leaves to show off their true colors. While giving us a sample of fall October still has days with a touch of summer, a good time for many activities to be held.
When describing the many foggy October mornings, Carl Sandberg wrote, “The fog comes on little cat feet. It sits looking over harbor and city on silent haunches and then moves on.”
Although there are many different types of fog, fog is essentially a cloud on the ground. In order to form, fog needs moisture in the air, and the air near the ground must be cooled to the dew point. (Dew point is the temperature at which the air can no longer hold all of the water vapor with which it is mixed. Some of the water vapor must condense into liquid water. The dew point is always lower than or equal to the air temperature.)
Although there are many types of fog, the fog we experience in September and October is radiation fog. This type of fog forms when the land cools after sunset. In order for radiation fog to form, the air must be calm and the skies clear. Cloud cover would trap the heat and not let the ground cool. The cool ground causes condensation in the air above. The calmer the air, the lower the fog. Radiant fog can occur throughout the night but rarely lasts long after sunrise.
During the winter months, fog forms in a much different manner than it does in the fall. Winter fog, will form when humid air moves over a cold surface. Winter fog, which is more common around bodies of water, is often known as lake fog or river fog.
In the fall, we see valley fog form when the cold dense air settles into the lower valleys, where the ground has been warmed by the sun during the day, condensing and forming fog.
We’ve all heard of the term “fog thick as pea soup”, which is used to describe dense fog. This term, which originated in Europe, was used to describe a dingy yellow smog from the burning of soft coal.
Perhaps modern man does not feel or notice the changing of the seasons as much as our ancestors did. We live in a somewhat man-made environment. People that live in our cities go months without stepping on bare-mother earth, walking only on concrete or steel; air- conditioners are used everywhere to beat the heat; many ways are used to heat our homes and electricity gives us light with a flick of a switch. It's no wonder we're losing contact with nature.
Our Native Americans said, "The white-man has lost all contact with mother earth. The first thing he did was make shoes so he did not have to put his feet upon the fresh ground. The next thing he did was build a chair so he did not have to sit upon the earth. The third thing he did was build a bed so he did not haveto lay upon it."
To the un-experienced eye, autumn will come overnight. To those who watch for such things, autumn creeps into our lives,almost a day at a time. It comes in with misty dawn mornings and a blanket of fog covering the ground. This fog persists against the weakening sun until late mornings; however, the sun will be strong enough to produce some hot afternoons.
One fall day (back when I was a young officer) I remember saying to Mary Alice that October was a stressful time for wildlife officers, citing the many missed meals; telephone calls in the middle of the night from people upset about something (that could have waited until morning); the long hours spent patrolling during the day and jacklight patrol until the wee hours of the morning. Mary Alice looked at me and said, “To experience real stress, a wildlife officer ought to try being the wife of a wildlife officer, along with being a housewife and mother.” I remember that I was smart enough not to say another word.