Is the Fog In?

How far you can see right now and over the next mornings — tule fog on the published Weather Service scales, with the official road and fog channels first.

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Town Tools builds free, public tools for Bakersfield and towns around the world. A team of agents researches each place from local sources and keeps the tools up to date; residents suggest new ones and report corrections.

Hour by hour

The next 18 hours, from now.

Time	Visibility	How it reads
4 am	over 6 mi	Clear
5 am	over 6 mi	Clear
6 am	over 6 mi	Clear
7 am	over 6 mi	Clear
8 am	over 6 mi	Clear
9 am	over 6 mi	Clear
10 am	over 6 mi	Clear
11 am	over 6 mi	Clear
noon	over 6 mi	Clear
1 pm	over 6 mi	Clear
2 pm	over 6 mi	Clear
3 pm	over 6 mi	Clear
4 pm	over 6 mi	Clear
5 pm	over 6 mi	Clear
6 pm	over 6 mi	Clear
7 pm	over 6 mi	Clear
8 pm	over 6 mi	Clear
9 pm	over 6 mi	Clear

How this page decides

The number is the forecast model’s visibility for the area, banded only on published scales: Mist from 1 to 5 km (about 0.6 to 3 mi), Fog below 1 km, Dense fog at or below a quarter of a mile (the US National Weather Service Dense Fog Advisory line, ~400 m), and Near-zero below about 200 ft — the most severe tier of NWS Hanford’s Fog Severity Index. It never tells you it is safe to drive; that call is yours, on the conditions you can see, and the official channels above.

If you’re driving

Slow down and use low beams

Caltrans’ advice in fog: reduce your speed and turn on your low-beam headlights — never high beams, which bounce back off the fog, and never just parking lights. Nearly three in four fog-related collisions involve driving too fast for the conditions.

Follow the right edge line, don’t stop in the road

Use the painted line on the right edge of the road as your guide, not the centre line, to stay in your lane. Don’t stop on the travelled road or the shoulder, where you can be hit from behind — if you must pull off, get well clear of traffic and turn your lights off so others don’t follow you off the road.

Worth knowing

What tule fog is

Tule fog is radiation fog: on a calm, clear night after rain the ground cools, the damp air just above it cools too, and fog settles in the low valley — thickest just before dawn, often burning off by midday before reforming after dark. The valley is ringed by mountains on three sides, so once it forms it has a hard time clearing out.

Source: NWS — fog safety, checked June 27, 2026

Why a fog page for Bakersfield

Tule fog has been the leading cause of weather-related crashes in California. On the foggy morning of 3 November 2007 a chain-reaction pile-up of more than a hundred vehicles closed northbound Highway 99 near Fresno, killing two people, with visibility reported around 200 feet. The same low-visibility mornings happen on Highway 99, Highway 58 and Interstate 5 around Bakersfield.

Source: Tule fog — background, checked June 27, 2026

The official fog scale

Through the foggy season the National Weather Service office in Hanford publishes a daily Fog Severity Index for the San Joaquin Valley, with Caltrans — a five-level, colour-coded read of the transportation risk, from green (no risk) to purple (0–200 ft visibility, the greatest risk). It’s the authoritative local picture; this page is a plain-words companion to it.

Source: NWS Hanford — Fog Severity Index, checked June 27, 2026

The official channels

NWS Hanford — Fog Severity IndexThe official daily fog-risk read for the San Joaquin Valley, with Caltrans.

NWS Hanford — forecast & advisoriesDense Fog Advisories and the local forecast for Bakersfield and Kern County.

Caltrans QuickMap — live road conditions & camerasLive highway cameras, closures and traffic — look here before you drive in fog.

California Highway InformationCurrent highway conditions — or call 1-800-427-7623 (1-800-427-ROAD).