AnswersDriveSo, even though typical clouds do contain a lot of water, this water is spread out for miles in the form of tiny water droplets or crystals, which are so small that the effect of gravity on them is negligible. Thus, from our vantage on the ground, clouds seem to float in the sky.
What is it called when a cloud is close to the ground?
Low clouds: Stratus, cumulus and stratocumulus clouds are based at altitudes of 6,000 feet or lower. Stratus clouds appear as smooth, even sheets; light rain and drizzle often fall from them; light snow or freezing drizzle during the winter. Fog is merely a stratus cloud reaching to, or forming on the ground.
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What causes the shape of a cloud?
Clouds form when the invisible water vapour in the air condenses into visible water droplets or ice crystals. There is water around us all the time in the form of tiny gas particles, also known as water vapour. There are also tiny particles floating around in the air - such as salt and dust - these are called aerosols.
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What is the name of a cloud at ground level?
When a low stratiform cloud contacts the ground, it is called fog if the prevailing surface visibility is less than 1 kilometer, although radiation and advection types of fog tend to form in clear air rather than from stratus layers.
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Can you sit on a cloud?
Clouds are a bunch of liquid water droplets that are so small they can be thrown around by the wind, physicists call that a suspension. Therefore, sitting on a cloud is sitting on miniscule water droplets. It's actually even worse, because a lake is 100% water, so you get surface tension and buoyancy.
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What makes a cloud?
Clouds form when the invisible water vapour in the air condenses into visible water droplets or ice crystals. There is water around us all the time in the form of tiny gas particles, also known as water vapour. There are also tiny particles floating around in the air - such as salt and dust - these are called aerosols.
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What does it feel like to be inside a cloud?
What does it feel like when we touch clouds? A cloud is made of water droplets or tiny ice crystals. As the water droplets rise high in the sky, the air gets cooler, causing the water droplets to adhere to particles of dust in the air. The droplets are so light they float in the air.
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Can clouds freeze?
Supercooling, a state where liquids do not solidify even below their normal freezing point, still puzzles scientists today. A good example of this phenomenon is found everyday in meteorology: clouds in high altitude are an accumulation of supercooled droplets of water below their freezing point.
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Why does a cloud burst?
Meteorologists say the rain from a cloudburst is usually of the shower type with a fall rate equal to or greater than 100 mm (4.94 inches) per hour. Generally cloudbursts are associated with thunderstorms. The air currents rushing upwards in a rainstorm hold up a large amount of water.
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How big is a cloud?
According to “The Cloud Spotter's Guide” (by Gavin Pretor-Pinney, Perigee Books, 2006), a puffy cumulus cloud (cumulus mediocris) averages about 2500 feet altitude (1/2 mile) over flat land. This variety of cumulus is about as thick as it is wide.
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How do clouds look?
Clouds are made up of tiny water droplets or ice crystals, usually a mixture of both. The water and ice scatter all light, making clouds appear white. If the clouds get thick enough or high enough all the light above does not make it through, hence the gray or dark look.
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Why don't birds get pulled down by gravity?
It is because birds have something called 'wings' that allow them to fly. Ask birds to stop flapping their wings and they'll fall down due to gravity. Gravitational force is a mass(and distance) dependant force. Lighter the object, less gravitational force it experiences by the earth.
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Why are the clouds moving?
Clouds move because the wind is carrying the parcel of cloudy air along. Wind occurs at all levels of the atmosphere from the ground up to higher than a jumbo jet can fly. Sometimes there can be no wind on the ground, but cirrus clouds very high up can be seen moving because of the wind where they are.
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What do clouds do for us?
At night, clouds reflect heat and keep the ground warmer. During the day, clouds make shade that can keep us cooler. Studying clouds helps NASA better understand Earth's weather. NASA uses satellites in space to study clouds.
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Why can we see the clouds?
Clouds happen when there is more water in the air than it can hold. This forces whatever the air can't hold to condense, which forms tiny droplets, which in aggregate make clouds or fog. The question then becomes, why does the air have more water in it than it can hold only in some places.
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How many gallons of water is in a cloud?
This is perhaps a better question than how much rain a cloud can hold. Scientists estimate that one inch of rain falling over an area of one square mile is equal to 17.4 million gallons of water. That much water would weigh 143 million pounds!
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Why do clouds rain?
When the air cools it condenses around some dust or other particles in the air, called condensation nuclei. These small droplets then become visible as clouds. Warm air can hold more moisture than cool air, so when the warmer air is cooled and the moisture condenses, it often rains more heavily.
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How heavy are the clouds?
According to scientists, the weight of the average cumulus cloud is 1.1 million pounds! Think about that for a moment. This means that at any given moment, there are millions of pounds of water floating above your head. That's the equivalent of 100 elephants.
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Are clouds a gas?
The invisible part of clouds that you cannot see is water vapor and dry air. The majority of the cloud is just plain air in which the invisible water vapor is mixed with and the very tiny water drops and ice particles are suspended in. A cloud is a mixture of gas, liquid and solids.
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Where do the clouds come from?
Where do clouds come from? The formation of clouds is the greatest of all the uncertainties in the scientific debate over climate change. Cloudiness cools the Earth by reflecting solar radiation back into space but the factors – natural and manmade – that encourage water droplets to condense remain largely unknown.
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How do clouds form and make rain?
This is exactly how clouds form and make rain. Water from rivers, lakes, streams, or oceans evaporates into the air when it is heated up by the sun. As the water vapor rises up in the air, it condenses, or starts to cool down and turns back into a liquid. Then, droplets of water start to stick together as clouds.
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What is the sky made up of?
The sky is really a blanket of gas around the planet that we call the atmosphere. When planet earth formed, the atmosphere was very then and just made of hydrogen and helium. Then volcanoes started to form and pumped out other gases like carbon dioxide and water vapour (… or steam).