photo #9023228

On a chilly winter morning in Lincolnville, Maine, US, Margaret Watson (Cloud Appreciation Society Member 41,347) watched the Sun rise over Penobscot Bay through a smoky orange haze.Happily, it isn’t fire but cold air meeting warm water that causes this ‘sea smoke’ to rise off the surface. It is known more officially as evaporation fog or cold advection fog, and it forms when cold, stable air drifts over a warmer body of water. Evaporation from the warm water saturates the cold air above. It condenses right back into droplets, which appear as fog that rises in smoke-like tendrils in the flaming light of dawn.