When I asked my aunt, Jennifer Gasparich Wreden, the first thing that popped into her head when she thought about growing up in San Francisco, she without hesitation exclaimed, “The fog! I hated the fog.” My mother Anne was not much of a fan either, and she and my grandparents and great grandmother, like many San Franciscans, would escape the summer fog by vacationing at the Russian River. 

San Francisco’s notorious fog is the result of the City being surrounded on three sides by water. As warm air blows over the colder water that hugs the California Coast, the air close to the waterline turns into vapor. Heat from the East Bay and beyond creates a vacuum, sucking the offshore vapor into the San Francisco Bay with a blanket of fog that drifts over the City itself. It can get low enough to hide the span of the Golden Gate Bridge^[1]. Fog arrives during the City’s summer months when surrounding areas have hot weather. When I was growing up, I kept hearing Mark Twain’s quote, “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco”. While Mark Twain never actually said this, the quote itself is not entirely wrong. Along with the fog comes a cold bitter wind that makes one wear a winter sweater in July.

In August 2010 the account @KarlTheFog popped up on Twitter. The author of the tweets remains anonymous, though they have answered questions via email from various news outlets. They say they were inspired to start the account when friends complained about the summer “fogpocalypse”. The name Karl was chosen from a character in the 2003 film “Big Fish”. Karl is a giant everyone is afraid will kill and eat them when, in fact, he is simply lonely. The author of @KarlTheFog made Karl a mysterious, almost romantic figure – with a wicked sense of humor.

One of my favorite @KarlTheFog tweets: 

         SalesForce Tower: “I’m gonna make my big debut tonight and everyone’s gonna see what I can do.”

         Me: “LOL no”

@KarlTheFog amassed 348,000 followers. “Karl” became so well known that it was used as a clue in the TV game show “Jeopardy”. 

And then, just like that, @KarlTheFog disappeared. Their last tweet was on January 19, 2020: “The fog horn blows because the #49ers are going to the Super Bowl!!”. Multiple requests about the author’s whereabouts and intentions have remained unanswered. On October 7, 2020 @fog_karla introduced herself, saying she is stepping in until Karl returns.

^[1] Golden Gate Bridge: https://thesanfranciscophoenix.com/?p=4916