A vocabulary of landscape — a landscape of words
1134 entries
marine layer
The cool, moist blanket of air that forms over cold ocean water and rolls onshore along the Pacific coast, producing the low stratus clouds and fog that define the coastal experience from Baja to British Columbia. The marine layer can be a few hundred feet thick or a few thousand. May Gray, June Gloom, and No-Sky July are the marine layer at its most persistent.
Etymology
Marine, from Latin marinus (“of the sea,” from mare, “sea”) + layer, from Middle English leyer (from leyen, “to lay”). A meteorological term for the stratum of sea-cooled air that lays itself over the coast.