Fog is a relatively rare event in Tucson because the air is so dry so much of the time.  To produce fog you first need to increase the relative humidity (RH) to 100%. 


You can do this either by cooling the air (radiation fog is an example) or adding moisture to and saturating the air (evaporation or steam fog).  Both will increase the ratio in the RH formula above.

Probably the most common type of fog in Tucson is radiation fog.  The ground cools during the night by emitting IR radiation (left figure below).  The ground cools most rapidly and gets coldest when the skies are free of clouds and the air is dry (except for a thin layer next to the ground.
 
Air in contact with the ground cools and radiation fog can form (right figure above).  Because the fog cloud is colder, denser, and heavier than the air right above, this is a stable situation.  The fog clouds "hugs" the ground.



A photograph of a very thin layer of radiation fog at left (source).  The fog layer at right was photographed in Tanzania (source).  The air was probably fairly moist and only a little cooling overnight raised the relative humidity to 100% and produced fog.

Radiation fog is sometimes called valley fog.



This is because the cold dense foggy air will move downhill and fill low lying areas.   Because the fog reflects sunlight, it is often difficult for the sun to warm the air and dissipate thick clouds of valley fog.



Valley fog (
source).

Steam fog or evaporation fog (also sometimes known as mixing fog) is commonly observed on cold mornings over the relatively warm water in a swimming pool.






In the sketch above, water evaporating from the pool saturates the cold air above.  Because the fog cloud is warmer than the cold surrounding air, the fog clouds float upward.  The photograph at right (source) was an Earth Science Picture of the Day.



When you "see your breath" on a cold day





you're seeing mixing fog (source of the right image above).  Warm moist air from your mouth mixes with the colder air outside.  The mixture is saturated and a fog cloud forms (the next time this happens to you watch and see if the warm fog cloud doesn't float upward).

You might remember the following two reactions from earlier in the semester when we were talking about photosynthesis and combustion

Combustion is in principle just the same reaction in reverse.  Note that water vapor is one of the by products of combustion.

Combustion sometimes adds enough water vapor to the air to saturate the air.  Clouds form in that case.  Here are a couple of examples


There is sometimes enough water vapor in automobile exhaust to saturate the air and form a cloud.  The exhaust from a car may, of course, also be smoke from burning oil or something like that.  The same is true of the exhaust from aircraft jet engines, water vapor in the exhaust sometimes forms contrails.

Exhaust from a natural gas fueled furnace or hot water heat also contains water vapor.  Most of the time you won't see the exhaust gases, but when the relative humidity is high you can see a cloud coming from one of the vents pipes on the house roof.  People will sometimes mistake this for smoke and will call the fire department.