Stretch or extend. Native speakers.

Question for native speakers.
I've got this sentence - Sometimes mists may lie on the surface of the water and stretch towards the clouds.
Is it possible to say like that or it will sound awkward? - Sometimes mists may lie on the surface of the water and extend towards the clouds.
Thanks.

It seems that the person is talking about fog and not mists. (But I suppose they are similar.) In any case, it is something that occurs at ground level. So either sentence makes perfect sense to me.

Stretch is good, extend is awkward.

I would delete may. The word sometimes makes clear that it does not always happen, so may is unneeded and redundant.

Charlie Bernstein said:

Stretch is good, extend is awkward.

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How is 'stretch' good? Mists don't stretch. I'd say 'extend' is much better. Obviously both words are being used in a colloquial way.

A mist is a light rain, and it doesn't either extend or stretch. As for a fog, it is a cloud. It's a cloud that sits on the surface of the planet.

~Ron

To me it sounds quite natural. I would use it myself.

Raymott said:

How is 'stretch' good? Mists don't stretch. I'd say 'extend' is much better. Obviously both words are being used in a colloquial way.

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Where I live, it does seem to be stretching upward. We call it sea smoke.

I don't think we did a very good job of teaching there. We talked among ourselves, but we did not give the OP his or her answer: yes.

probus said:

I don't think we did a very good job of teaching there. We talked among ourselves, but we did not give the OP his or her answer: yes.

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Yes, it's OK, or yes, it will sound awkward?

To me, extend sounds natural.

Mist and fog are the same thing except for visibilty. You can see further in mist. Fog won't let you see more than 1 km.

Yes, technically it's a "cloud on the ground" but I have no problem imagining what the writer means by saying it extends up towards the clouds.