VISIBILITY

In meteorology, 'visibility' is a measure of the distance at which an object or light can be clearly discerned.
It is important to all forms of traffic: roads, sailing and aviation. Meteorological visibility refers to transparency of air: in dark, meteorological visibility is still the same as in daylight for the same air.

'Aviation'. In aviation, visibility is defined as the greater of:
:a) the greatest distance at which a black object of suitable dimensions, situated near the ground, can be seen and recognized when observed against a bright background;
:b) the greatest distance at which lights of 1,000 candelas can be seen and identified against an unlit background.

★ Another term, Runway Visual Range (RVR) is also defined. This is related to visibility specifically measured near a runway in the direction of an approaching aircraft.

In extremely clean air in Arctic or mountainous areas, the visibility can be up to 70 to 100 km. However, visibility is often reduced somewhat by air pollution and high humidity. Various weather stations report this as haze (dry) or mist (moist). Fog and smoke can reduce visibility to near zero, making driving extremely dangerous. The same can happen in a sandstorm in and near desert areas, or with forest fires. Heavy rain (such as from a thunderstorm) not only causes low visibility, but the inability to brake quickly due to hydroplaning. Blizzards and ground blizzards (blowing snow) are also defined in part by low visibility.
'Fog, mist, haze'. The international definition of fog is a visibility of less than 1 km; mist is a visibility of between 1 and 2 km and haze from 2 to 5 km. Fog and mist are generally assumed to be composed principally of water droplets, haze and smoke can be of smaller particle size; this has implications for sensors such as Thermal Imagers (TI/FLIR) operating in the far-IR at wavelengths of about 10 μm which are better able to penetrate haze and some smokes because their particle size is smaller than the wavelength; the IR radiation is therefore not significantly deflected or absorbed by the particles
'Very low visibility'. Visibility of less than 100 meters or ¹/16^th of a mile are usually reported as zero. In these conditions, roads may be closed, or automatic warning lights and signs may be activated to warn drivers. These have been put in place in certain areas that are prone to repeatedly low visibility, particularly after massive pile-up accidents involving collisions of several (or even dozens) of automobiles have occurred there.
'Low visibility warnings'. In addition, an advisory is often issued by a government weather agency for low visibility, such as a dense fog advisory from the U.S. National Weather Service. These generally advise motorists to avoid travel until the fog burns off or other conditions improve. Airport travel is also often delayed by low visibility, sometimes causing long waits due to instrument flight rules and wider spacing of aircraft.

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See also

See also

★ Obscuration

★ Plasmonic cover