Frequent heavy fog in eastern Quebec

Fog spells have been very frequent this summer along the St. Lawrence River in eastern Quebec.

And again this week, almost every morning, locals wake up surrounded by thick fog.

For the captain of the Heritage 1 ferry, which connects Trois-Pistoles and Les Escoumins, so many fog incidents in one summer are unheard of.

“The famous ‘fog horn’, which has to sound every two minutes in low visibility to warn of our presence, becomes tiresome in the long run,” says Captain Jean-Philippe Rieu.

“This year, it’s been intense for a long time. It’s September, and today again, it’s one of the worst foggy days I’ve ever seen in my career. “I got to Les Escoumins, and we were 500 feet from the dock and we couldn’t see it,” he adds. .

Sailing in such conditions is very difficult, says the captain of the Heritage 1.

“You have to pay as much attention to what’s happening because you can’t see anything. So you have to constantly look into nothingness and into your radar. So it’s constant, relentless intellectual work. Radar is our number one tool. It’s our eyes,” says Jan. “Philippe Rioux, the obstacles we don’t see.”

This dense fog observed on numerous occasions this summer on the St. Lawrence River is often caused by a mass of warm, humid air meeting with the cooler waters of the St. Lawrence.

“We had a lot of moisture in the place. So it was for constant humidity. It was enough to lower the temperature until saturation was reached. That’s why it happened particularly or mostly,” says Jean-Philippe Bergeron, a meteorologist with Environment Canada. Sometimes at night until morning.”

According to Environment Canada, we should not expect next summer to be more foggy, because at the moment, science does not allow a link between climate change and the presence of fog.

To see the full report, watch the video above.