What we simply have to know about...CLOUDS

Fire rainbow image source

Clouds are nothing more than condensed water vapor or ice (often containing small amounts of other chemicals) thats cooled as it rises up into the atmosphere. Large clouds can contain millions of tons of water.

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The different forms of clouds include stratus (flat, layered sheets), cumulus (puffy), and cirrus (thin, made of ice, and usually high up in the atmosphere). Other varieties of clouds include altocumulus, altostratus, cirrocumulus, and cirrostratus.

Cirrostratus cloud image source

Altocumulus cloud image source

Cirrocumulus cloud image source

Although uncommon, cloud iridescence is the process that difracts the light from the Sun, causing the clouds to appear as though they contain a rainbow.

Rainbow cloud image source

Fog is simply a stratus cloud that forms on ground level.

Fog image source

'Precipitation' is the name given to weather conditions that include rain, snow, sleet, and hail, all of which originate from clouds.

Nimbostratus cloud or snow cloud image source

Clouds on Venus are made of sulphur dioxide, while on Saturn and Jupiter, they are made of ammonia. In fact, every celestial body (planets, moons, etc.) that has an atmosphere has clouds - including our Moon and its microatmosphere.

Venus cloud image source

Clouds are suspended by updrafts of wind. When the ice crystals that make up a cloud begin to take on additional moisture, they become too heavy for the updraft to support, and the water then falls as rain.

Rain image source

In June, 2010, a hailstorm in South Dakota produced the largest hailstone ever recorded. Weighing almost one kilogram, the hailstone was as large as a soccer ball.

Hailstone image source

'Cloud suck' is what happens to paragliders and hang-gliders when the thermals underneath a cumulus cloud cause the glider to be pulled upwards - sometimes by tens of thousands of feet in conditions well below freezing and with almost no oxygen.

Information credits to [email protected]

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