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<front>
<journal-meta>
<journal-id journal-id-type="publisher">EGUsphere</journal-id>
<journal-title-group>
<journal-title>EGUsphere</journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="publisher">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="nlm-ta">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
</journal-title-group>
<publisher><publisher-name>Copernicus Publications</publisher-name>
<publisher-loc>Göttingen, Germany</publisher-loc>
</publisher>
</journal-meta>
<article-meta>
<article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.5194/egusphere-2026-6210</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>Weather types organize fog and low-cloud variability along the South-Western African coastline</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Andersen</surname>
<given-names>Hendrik</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2983-8838</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Pohl</surname>
<given-names>Benjamin</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9339-797X</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Gaetani</surname>
<given-names>Marco</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2923-6773</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff4">
<sup>4</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>Institute of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Karlsruhe, Germany</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff2">
<label>2</label>
<addr-line>Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research Atmospheric Trace Gases and Remote Sensing, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Karlsruhe, Germany</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff3">
<label>3</label>
<addr-line>Biogéosciences, UMR6282 CNRS / Université Bourgogne Europe, Dijon, France</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff4">
<label>4</label>
<addr-line>Scuola Universitaria Superiore IUSS, Pavia, Italy</addr-line>
</aff>
<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>30</day>
<month>10</month>
<year>2026</year>
</pub-date>
<volume>2026</volume>
<fpage>1</fpage>
<lpage>33</lpage>
<permissions>
<copyright-statement>Copyright: &#x000a9; 2026 Hendrik Andersen et al.</copyright-statement>
<copyright-year>2026</copyright-year>
<license license-type="open-access">
<license-p>This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit <ext-link ext-link-type="uri"  xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</ext-link></license-p>
</license>
</permissions>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-6210/">This article is available from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-6210/</self-uri>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-6210/egusphere-2026-6210.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-6210/egusphere-2026-6210.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>The hyperarid Namib Desert relies on fog and low clouds (FLCs) as a critical water source, a role likely to grow in importance under a warmer, drier climate. While the climatological mean conditions favoring FLC formation are well understood, its day-to-day drivers are less clear. FLCs have been linked to transient synoptic-scale disturbances, but previous studies relied on two-state (e.g. fog versus clear-sky) composites, which mixed different synoptic states and could not resolve a disturbance&apos;s evolution across the coast. To fill this gap, we extend an existing weather-type (WT) classification of the south-eastern Atlantic atmospheric circulation to the full annual cycle, and combine it with 22 years of satellite FLC observations, ERA5 reanalysis, and more than a decade of station observations. We find that in the Namib, FLC occurrence is strongly tied to the life cycle of eastward-propagating mid-latitude disturbances, that drive long-range moisture transport ahead of mid-latitude troughs, and favor free-tropospheric drying and boundary-layer deepening on their rear flanks. This response persists for around three days and is state-dependent, varying with season and latitude. Along the south coast where radiation and advection-radiation fog rather than stratus-interception fog dominate, FLC occurrence instead responds oppositely to the same weather types, pointing to a systematic link between dominant fog type and synoptic sensitivity. These results establish transient mid-latitude disturbances as a unifying, multi-scale control on Namib fog variability and a physical basis for anticipating its response to future circulation change.</p>
</abstract>
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<funding-group>
<award-group id="gs1">
<funding-source>Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft</funding-source>
<award-id>CE 163/14-1</award-id>
</award-group>
<award-group id="gs2">
<funding-source>Agence Nationale de la Recherche</funding-source>
<award-id>ANR-22-CE92-005</award-id>
</award-group>
</funding-group>
</article-meta>
</front>
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