Have you ever woken up on a super foggy morning, then a few hours later, the fog is gone and the sun is shining brightly? This most likely has something to do with “burn off.”

Burn off is a term used to describe fog dissipating. To understand this, let’s start with how fog forms. Fog forms when the temperature drops at or below the dew point. When this happens, water vapor in the atmosphere condenses into tiny liquid water droplets, which forms the fog. This process is very common during the overnight hours, when temperatures cool.

Fast forward to mid-morning when temperatures begin to warm again. As the temperature becomes warmer than the dew point once again, it forces the water droplets within the fog to evaporate. This occurs from bottom to top, because Earth’s surface will be the quickest to warm from the sun’s heat, then the air above. This is why you may hear some people referring to burn off as the “fog is lifting.”

So I guess burn off isn’t much of a “burning” process, but more of an evaporation process. But regardless of what you call it, that moment when the sun begins to shine through, and the fog seems to melt away, is always a beautiful sight in my book.

Jennifer Gray is a weather and climate writer for weather.com. She has been covering some of the world's biggest weather and climate stories for the last two decades.