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Cloud Formation and Types of Clouds

The document describes the formation and types of clouds, explaining how water vapor condenses into droplets or ice crystals to create clouds. It details various cloud types, including cumulus, stratus, cirrus, and cumulonimbus, along with their characteristics and appearances. Additionally, it mentions other cloud formations such as contrails and orographic clouds.

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Reven Jade Palma
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0 views

Cloud Formation and Types of Clouds

The document describes the formation and types of clouds, explaining how water vapor condenses into droplets or ice crystals to create clouds. It details various cloud types, including cumulus, stratus, cirrus, and cumulonimbus, along with their characteristics and appearances. Additionally, it mentions other cloud formations such as contrails and orographic clouds.

Uploaded by

Reven Jade Palma
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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I wear many faces, though I have no head,

I hold the sun's fire, and tears that are shed.


I'm a canvas of blue, or a stormy dark grey,
Where birds take their journeys, and planes
find their way.

What am I?
I am born of water, but I am not
wet. I travel the world, but I never
get tired. I can block the sun, or let
it shine.

What am I?
CLOUD
FORMATION AND

Different types of clouds


The process begins when water on the Earth's
surface, such as oceans, lakes, and rivers,
absorbs energy from the Sun and evaporates
into the atmosphere in the form of water vapor.

As the warmed air containing water vapor rises,


it encounters cooler air at higher altitudes. The
rising air cools due to decreasing atmospheric
pressure, causing the water vapor to condense
into droplets or ice crystals.
Water vapor needs a surface to condense
onto. Dust particles, salt particles from the
ocean, or other microscopic particles known
as condensation nuclei provide the surface
for water vapor to condense and form cloud
droplets.

When the water vapor condenses onto


condensation nuclei, it forms cloud droplets.
These droplets continue to accumulate and
collide with each other, forming visible clouds.
The type of cloud that forms depend on
various factors such as temperature, humidity,
and atmospheric pressure.

Common types of clouds include cumulus


clouds or the puffy and cotton-like clouds,
stratus clouds or the layered clouds, cirrus
clouds or the thin and wispy clouds and
cumulonimbus clouds or the towering and
thunderstorm clouds
Cumulus clouds
Cumulus clouds are detached,
individual, cauliflower-shaped clouds
usually spotted in fair weather
conditions. The tops of these clouds
are mostly brilliant white tufts when lit
by the Sun, although their base is
usually relatively dark.

Stratus clouds
Stratus clouds are low-level layers with
a fairly uniform grey or white colour.
Often the scene of dull, overcast days
in its 'nebulosus' form, they can persist
for long periods of time. They are the
lowest-lying cloud type and
sometimes appear at the surface in
the form of mist or fog.
Cirrus clouds
Cirrus clouds are short, detached,
hair-like clouds found at high
altitudes. These delicate clouds are
wispy, with a silky sheen, or look like
tufts of hair. In the daytime, they are
whiter than any other cloud in the sky.
While the Sun is setting or rising, they
may take on the colours of the sunset.

Cumulonimbus clouds
Cumulonimbus clouds are menacing
looking multi-level clouds, extending
high into the sky in towers or plumes.
More commonly known as
thunderclouds, cumulonimbus is the
only cloud type that can produce hail,
thunder and lightning.
Altocumulus clouds
Altocumulus clouds are small mid-level
layers or patches of clouds, called
cloudlets, which most commonly exist in
the shape of rounded clumps.
Altocumulus are made up of a mix of ice
and water, giving them a slightly more
ethereal appearance than the big and
fluffy lower level cumulus.

Altostratus clouds
Altostratus are large mid-level sheets
of thin cloud. Usually composed of a
mixture of water droplets and ice
crystals, they are thin enough in parts
to allow you to see the Sun weakly
through the cloud. They are often
spread over a very large area and are
typically featureless.
Cirrocumulus clouds
Cirrocumulus clouds are made up of lots of
small white clouds called cloudlets, which
are usually grouped together at high levels.
Composed almost entirely from ice crystals,
the little cloudlets are regularly spaced,
often arranged as ripples in the sky.
Cirrocumulus can sometimes appear to
look like the scaly skin of a fish and is
referred to as a mackerel sky.

Cirrostratus clouds
Cirrostratus are transparent high clouds,
which cover large areas of the sky. They
sometimes produce white or coloured rings,
spots or arcs of light around the Sun or
Moon, that are known as halo phenomena.
Sometimes they are so thin that the halo is
the only indication that a cirrostratus cloud
is in the sky.
Stratocumulus clouds
Stratocumulus clouds are low-level
clumps or patches of cloud varying in
colour from bright white to dark grey. They
are the most common clouds on earth
recognised by their well-defined bases,
with some parts often darker than others.
They usually have gaps between them,
but they can also be joined together.

Nimbostratus clouds
Nimbostratus clouds are dark, grey,
featureless layers of cloud, thick enough to
block out the Sun. Producing persistent rain,
these clouds are often associated with
frontal systems provided by mid-latitude
cyclones. These are probably the least
picturesque of all the main cloud types.
Contrails Clouds

Contrails are long thin lines


of cloud, usually seen
behind an aircraft.

Orographic Clouds
Orographic clouds are clouds
that develop in response to the
forced lifting of air by the
earth's topography (mountains
for example).
Mammatus Clouds
Mammatus (also called mamma or
mammatocumulus, meaning
"mammary cloud") is a cellular pattern
of pouches hanging underneath the
base of a cloud, typically a
cumulonimbus raincloud, although they
may be attached to other classes of
parent clouds.

Pileus Clouds
When there is a stable and moist
airstream flowing above the cloud top
of cumulus, the airstream condensation
and formation of a cap cloud aloft
called pileus cloud.
Activity: Cloud Bank
Homework: Cloud Cloze

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