Clouds aren’t like buckets, so they don’t really “hold” water like a bucket would. Whether you realize it or not, the air around you is filled with water. Water comes in three forms: liquid (that you drink), solid (ice) and gas (water vapor in the air).
- 1 How does the clouds hold water?
- 2 Can you touch a cloud?
- 3 How much water does cloud hold?
- 4 Why do clouds not fall?
- 5 Why are clouds white?
- 6 Do you need clouds for rain?
- 7 Are clouds heavy?
- 8 Can you eat clouds?
- 9 Can you put a cloud in a jar?
- 10 Can you touch a rainbow?
- 11 Can a cloud freeze?
- 12 Why do clouds turn GREY?
- 13 Can air be pulled down by gravity?
- 14 What was the largest cloud ever recorded?
- 15 Why do planes shake in clouds?
- 16 Why does rain fall from clouds?
- 17 Why is the sky blue for kids?
- 18 What causes a lightning?
- 19 Is a rainbow cloud rare?
- 20 Why are clouds pink?
- 21 Can it snow without clouds?
- 22 What if there were no clouds?
- 23 How tall is a cloud?
- 24 Can a cloud touch the ground?
- 25 What do clouds taste like?
- 26 Does it hurt to fall through a cloud?
- 27 Are triple rainbows possible?
- 28 What is a Moonbow?
- 29 Has anybody ever found the end of a rainbow?
- 30 Do clouds smell?
- 31 What is the average speed of a cloud?
- 32 Where does Earth’s gravity end?
- 33 Why are you not crushed by atmospheric pressure?
- 34 Why don t the planets get pulled into the sun?
- 35 Are clouds hot?
- 36 Why do clouds look fluffy?
- 37 Why is it colder when there are no clouds?
- 38 Why are clouds white 10?
- 39 Why do clouds turn green?
- 40 Why are clouds black before rain?
- 41 Where do clouds go at night?
- 42 What is the rarest cloud?
- 43 Why are clouds visible at night?
- 44 What happens if you fly through a cloud?
- 45 Do pilots avoid clouds?
- 46 Why are planes cloudy bumpy?
- 47 Why does it rain at night?
- 48 What is the saying when it rains it pours?
- 49 Does snow come from clouds?
- 50 How much does the sky weigh?
- 51 Is the sun black?
- 52 Why is the sky red at sunset?
- 53 What are sun dogs in the sky?
- 54 Are sun dogs rare?
How does the clouds hold water?
First of all, the droplets of water are very very small, smaller than the head of a pin. Because they are so small they are easily kept up by the rising air. So the reason that clouds can hold water droplets is because the air in clouds is rising, and the rising air keeps pushing the water droplets up.
Can you touch a cloud?
Unfortunately, it does not feel like cotton balls or cotton candy, but most people have technically touched a cloud before. If you wanted to touch an airborne cloud, the best way to do this is either skydiving or in a hot air balloon, though I would not want to be stuck in a cloud while in a hot air balloon.
How much water does cloud hold?
A typical cumulus cloud carries about half-a-gram of water in each cubic metre — that’s the weight of a big garden pea. A big fat dark cumulonimbus cloud could carry up to six times as much water (say, three grams of water per cubic metre).
Why do clouds not fall?
Like everything on this planet, the tiny droplets that make up a cloud are drawn towards the Earth by gravity. But these droplets are so small that it’s hard for them to push past all the air beneath them. This means that they don’t fall very fast at all – in fact, only about one centimetre per second.
Why are clouds white?
Clouds are white because light from the Sun is white. As light passes through a cloud, it interacts with the water droplets, which are much bigger than the atmospheric particles that exist in the sky.
Do you need clouds for rain?
Because rain forms when droplets of condensed moisture grow large enough to descend quickly into the air, their absence can make it impossible for rain to occur. That means if there are no clouds overhead, rain cannot happen as well.
Are clouds heavy?
They may look all light and fluffy, but the reality is that clouds are actually pretty heavy. Researchers have calculated that the average cumulus cloud – which is that nice, white fluffy kind you see on a sunny day – weighs an incredible 500,000 kg (or 1.1 million pounds!).
Can you eat clouds?
As clouds are made up of water vapor and helium, they are not harmful to eat. While eating clouds isn’t exactly harmful, it certainly isn’t nutritious.
Can you put a cloud in a jar?
Can you make a cloud in a jar? Absolutely! With just a few things from around the house you can simulate the conditions needed for clouds to form.
Can you touch a rainbow?
In short, you can touch someone else’s rainbow, but not your own. A rainbow is light reflecting and refracting off water particles in the air, such as rain or mist. The water particles and refracted light that form the rainbow you see can be miles away and are too distant to touch.
Can a cloud freeze?
When the water drops get high enough in the sky, they encounter the colder temperatures at higher altitudes and freeze, even in the summer. Both water drops and ice crystals in a cloud are so small that they both look like white fluff from the ground.
Why do clouds turn GREY?
When clouds are thin, they let a large portion of the light through and appear white. But like any objects that transmit light, the thicker they are, the less light makes it through. As their thickness increases, the bottoms of clouds look darker but still scatter all colors. We perceive this as gray.
Can air be pulled down by gravity?
Although air is very tenuous compared to other materials, it is indeed composed of atoms and indeed has mass. As such, air is pulled down by gravity just like everything else that has mass.
What was the largest cloud ever recorded?
Astronomers have discovered the largest and oldest mass of water ever detected in the universe — a gigantic, 12-billion-year-old cloud harboring 140 trillion times more water than all of Earth’s oceans combined.
Why do planes shake in clouds?
Clouds create convective or thermal turbulence. This is rising & falling columns of air within the cloud. As the airplane passes into and through the differing air columns it will rise and fall with the currents. This causes the airplane to shake & shudder especially when transitioning between them.
Why does rain fall from clouds?
Precipitation forms in the clouds when water vapor condenses into bigger and bigger droplets of water. When the drops are heavy enough, they fall to the Earth. If a cloud is colder, like it would be at higher altitudes, the water droplets may freeze to form ice.
Why is the sky blue for kids?
White light is made up of all colors of light. Nitrogen molecules scatter blue light more than they do the other colors. So a little bit of blue light bounces around in the sky and then enters our eyes. That makes the sky look blue.
What causes a lightning?
In the early stages of development, air acts as an insulator between the positive and negative charges in the cloud and between the cloud and the ground. When the opposite charges build up enough, this insulating capacity of the air breaks down and there is a rapid discharge of electricity that we know as lightning.
Is a rainbow cloud rare?
Cloud iridescence is relatively rare. The cloud must be thin and have lots of water droplets or ice crystals of about the same size. When that happens, the sun’s rays encounter just a few droplets at at time.
Why are clouds pink?
Excess dust and aerosols suspended in the atmosphere diffuse and scatter light and only the longer wavelength light remains, making the clouds appear pink color or a pinkish-red sky at night.
Can it snow without clouds?
Diamond dust isn’t your typical snowfall. Unlike ordinary snow, it can fall from a cloudless sky, which is why it’s sometimes known as “clear sky precipitation.” This is possible thanks to another weather phenomenon called temperature inversion.
What if there were no clouds?
No clouds means no rain, ice, or snow. That means drinking-water supplies wouldn’t get replenished. Water shortages also spell trouble for power plants that rely on heating fresh water. Without clouds to reflect light from the sun, global temperatures would spike.
How tall is a cloud?
High clouds have base heights of 3,000 to 7,600 meters (10,000 to 25,000 ft) in polar regions, 5,000 to 12,200 meters (16,500 to 40,000 ft) in temperate regions, and 6,100 to 18,300 meters (20,000 to 60,000 ft) in the tropical region.
Can a cloud touch the ground?
Some clouds are high up in the sky. Low clouds form closer to Earth’s surface. In fact, low clouds can even touch the ground. These clouds are called fog.
What do clouds taste like?
As it warms up, the water turns into a vapor and teeny, tiny water droplets start to float up into the air. This process is called ‘evaporation’. Then, the whole water cycle process starts all over again! So, if we could eat or drink them, clouds would taste like water.
Does it hurt to fall through a cloud?
Skydiving through rain can be painful because you’re falling at terminal velocity, so the rain is driven into your face at up to 200km/h. In a thundercloud, your chances of being hit by lightning are higher than on the ground because your wet body presents a more conductive path than the air around you.
Are triple rainbows possible?
On rare occasions rays of light are reflected three times within a rain drop and a triple rainbow is produced. There have only been five scientific reports of triple rainbows in 250 years, says international scientific body the Optical Society.
What is a Moonbow?
A moonbow (sometimes known as a lunar rainbow) is an optical phenomenon caused when the light from the moon is refracted through water droplets in the air. The amount of light available even from the brightest full moon is far less than that produced by the sun so moonbows are incredibly faint and very rarely seen.
Has anybody ever found the end of a rainbow?
The mythical “end of the rainbow” was found Friday afternoon in North Carolina, near the town of Thomasville. Video of the elusive spot was posted on Facebook by photographer Katelyn Sebastian of Winston-Salem, revealing the rainbow led straight to Interstate 85, about 80 miles northeast of Charlotte.
Do clouds smell?
Lightning inside of clouds produces ozone—that’s the smell that tells you that a storm is on the way.
What is the average speed of a cloud?
Typically, clouds move at an average speed of 30-250mph. However, it can change according to the situation and wind conditions. There are different factors that influence the speed of cloud movement. For instance, at higher altitudes, the clouds tend to move faster than at lower levels.
Where does Earth’s gravity end?
The Earth’s gravitational field extends well into space it does not stop. However, it does weaken as one gets further from the center of the Earth. The Shuttle orbits about 125 mi above the surface, roughly the distance between Jackson and Nashville!
Why are you not crushed by atmospheric pressure?
The reason we are not crushed under the weight of the air is, that the pressure inside our body is equal to the atmospheric pressure and cancels the pressure being exerted from outside.
Why don t the planets get pulled into the sun?
Paradoxically, it is the Sun’s gravity that keeps the planets in orbit around it, just as the Earth’s gravity keeps the Moon and satellites in orbit around it. The reason they do not just fall into the Sun is that they are traveling fast enough to continually “miss” it.
Are clouds hot?
Clouds warm or cool Earth’s atmosphere by absorbing heat emitted from the surface and radiating it to space. Clouds warm and dry Earth’s atmosphere and supply water to the surface by forming precipitation.
Why do clouds look fluffy?
When warm air rises from the ground, it carries water vapor with it. When the water vapor meets the cold air found high in the sky, the gas condenses to liquid and forms cumulus clouds. While these fluffy-white clouds look like soft pillows of cotton, they are actually composed of small water droplets.
Why is it colder when there are no clouds?
If there are no clouds, the energy from the ground just goes up, up, and away… Whenever it’s a clear night and you can see lots of stars, there is nothing to trap all that infrared energy, so it’s lost to space and we feel cold.
Why are clouds white 10?
All the suspended particles in cloud have size very larger than the wavelength of visible light falling onto it. So, it suffers almost zero scattering. Hence the clouds which have droplets of water with a>>λ are generally white.
Why do clouds turn green?
“Those are the kind of storms that may produce hail and tornadoes.” Green does indicate that the cloud is extremely tall, and since thunderclouds are the tallest clouds, green is a warning sign that large hail or a tornado may be present.
Why are clouds black before rain?
White is how our eyes perceive all wavelengths of sunlight mixed together. When it’s about to rain, clouds darken because the water vapor is clumping together into raindrops, leaving larger spaces between drops of water. Less light is reflected. The rain cloud appears black or gray.
Where do clouds go at night?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UheXLmzmV0
What is the rarest cloud?
Scientists have called noctilucent clouds “the highest, driest, coldest, and rarest clouds on Earth.” Indeed, most of the planet’s clouds form in the troposphere, the layer of atmosphere closest to the ground, and occasionally in the stratosphere.
Why are clouds visible at night?
Under these conditions, water vapor freezes onto any dust particles floating in the region, forming ice crystals that congregate into tendrils and filaments. These thin clouds come to life around dusk and dawn, when the angle of sunlight makes them seem to glow against the darker twilight skies.
What happens if you fly through a cloud?
These cloud-borne updrafts and downdrafts result in rapid and unpredictable changes to the lift force on the wings of an aircraft. More or less lift and the difference between these changes is what causes the aircraft to lurch and jump about during flight, or turbulence as it is called within the industry.
Do pilots avoid clouds?
Pilots will actively avoid taking the aircraft into Cumulonimbus type clouds as they can be hazardous to aviation. They can be very turbulent due to the updrafts and downdrafts, contain icing, heavy rain and hail and lightning.
Why are planes cloudy bumpy?
But another, and often more significant, reason turbulence occurs in clouds is due to the unstable mixing of air due to the temperature, pressure, and velocity changes within clouds compared to the outside air.
Why does it rain at night?
Air is generally cooler at night, and cool air holds less moisture than warm air resulting in rainfall.
What is the saying when it rains it pours?
Definition of when it rains, it pours
—used to say that when something bad happens other bad things usually happen at the same time The team not only lost the game but three of its best players were injured. When it rains, it pours.
Does snow come from clouds?
Snow is precipitation in the form of ice crystals. It originates in clouds when temperatures are below the freezing point (0 degrees Celsius, or 32 degrees Fahrenheit), when water vapor in the atmosphere condenses directly into ice without going through the liquid stage.
How much does the sky weigh?
How much does air weigh? This means the sky weighs 14.7 lbs per square inch of earth surface which is roughly 11 billion billion pounds. So, you can say that sky weighs one millionth of the mass of the Earth.
Is the sun black?
As with all matter, the sun emits a “black body spectrum” that is defined by its surface temperature. A black body spectrum is the continuum of radiation at many different wavelengths that is emitted by any body with a temperature above absolute zero.
Why is the sky red at sunset?
Blue is scattered more than other colours because it travels as shorter, smaller waves. However, at sunset, light has further to travel through the atmosphere. The shorter wavelength blue light is scattered further, as the sunlight passes over a greater distance, and we see the longer wavelength yellow and red light.
What are sun dogs in the sky?
Sundogs are colored spots of light that develop due to the refraction of light through ice crystals. They are located approximately 22 degrees either left, right, or both, from the sun, depending on where the ice crystals are present.
Are sun dogs rare?
Are they rare? Halos and sun dogs are not rare, especially with the cold winters experienced across the Prairies, but it isn’t an everyday occurrence. You need the right atmospheric conditions for ice crystals to form, then the sun has to be at the correct angle for light to refract.