The first time you see it, it doesn’t look real. You walk up to the lake at 7am, breath showing, hands in your pockets, and the whole surface of Lake Nokomis is smoking. Thin white wisps curl up off the water and drift sideways like the lake is a giant cup of coffee someone just poured.
It’s one of our favorite things about fall here. And it turns out there’s a simple reason it happens.
What You’re Actually Seeing
That “steam” is called steam fog, and nothing is boiling. It’s all about the gap between the water and the air.
Water holds onto heat a lot longer than air does. All summer, the lake soaks up warmth, and in October it’s still carrying a good amount of it. The air, on the other hand, cools off fast. After a clear, cold night, the air sitting over the lake can be much colder than the water underneath it.
When that happens, the relatively warm water keeps evaporating into the chilly air above it. That moisture hits the cold and condenses almost instantly into tiny droplets, the same way your breath turns visible on a cold morning. Basically, it’s a cloud forming right on the surface of the lake.
When the air is a lot colder than the water, the fog can start to swirl and rise in little columns. On really cold mornings you might even catch small spinning wisps, sometimes called steam devils. It looks a little spooky, which feels right for October.
When to Catch It
Steam fog is picky. Here’s what to look for:
🌙 A clear, cold night before. No cloud cover means the air cools down fast.
🍃 Calm wind. A breeze mixes the fog away as fast as it forms. Still mornings are the ones.
🌅 Early. Sunrise and the hour or so after is prime time. Once the sun warms things up, it fades quickly.
📅 Now through early winter. It keeps happening on cold mornings until the lake freezes over. Once there’s ice on top, the show’s over until next fall.
If you wake up to frost on your windshield and no wind, that’s your sign. Get to the lake.
Where to Stand
You want to be looking east, toward the sunrise, so the light comes through the fog instead of flattening it. The west side of the lake is your friend here.
A few spots we like:
📍 The Bridge Over the Creek Entrance
📍 South Side of the Lagoon
📍 Concrete Ledge Next to Little Beach
Bring your phone. Low sun through rising fog over the water, with the trees still holding some color, is about as good as a lake photo gets.
Bring Something Warm
Standing still by the water at 7am in October is cold. We open early for exactly this reason. Grab something hot on your way down, and wrap your hands around it while the lake does its thing. A Trick or Toast works nicely, and so does a plain drip.
There are a handful of mornings each fall when the lake looks like this, and they don’t announce themselves ahead of time. So the next time you wake up to a cold, still, clear morning, go look. It’s worth getting out of bed for.
See you at the cafe. ☕
