Understanding Types of Clouds

That one looks like a frog, and that one looks just like a mushroom, what are they really? They are clouds. It is not uncommon for people to gaze up at the sky and find shapes, animal and objects in the clouds, it can almost be done on a daily basis. So what is a cloud, how do they form, what kinds of clouds are there, and just what can they tell us?

A cloud is made up of a large quantity of ice crystals or tiny droplets of water, that are formed when moisture in the air condenses around a tiny particle of dust, ash, dirt even salt. The ice crystals or droplets, hang suspended in our atmosphere, and when they are surrounded by billions of other crystals or drops, they become visible, as a cloud.

Water has this great ability to be a liquid, then be able to freeze into a solid, and thaw back into a liquid, forming droplets, thus forming clouds. When these droplets get big enough, they fall to the ground as rain, or if it is really cold, they freeze coming down as snow, sleet or hail. While all of these changes were taking place, the wind has blown the cloud a long distance from its starting point, moving water from one place to another.

Besides moving water, clouds also play an important role in maintaining Earth's temperature as well as weather conditions. Scientists have been working on a process called "Cloud Seeding". This process involves dropping dry ice into the stratus cloud, causing ice crystals to form and fall as snow or rain. Cloud Seeding has been experimented and has shown that by seeding a hurrican it becomes less powerful.

Clouds are catagorized based on many things. How they are formed, how high in the sky they are, their shape and so on. They are classified into five catagories, High clouds, Middle clouds, Low clouds, Verticle clouds, and Other cloud types. Within each catagory there are sub-types.

The High clouds are maily made up of ice crystals forming above 20,000 feet. They tend to be thin and whispy, opten transparent like, they are mainly white in appearance, but can appear many colors when the sun is low. Types of high clouds include Cirrus, Cirrostratus, Cirrocumulus and Contrails.

Cirrus clouds are probably the most common of the High clouds. They are ice clouds, being more than three miles up in freezing temperature, even in the summer time. As the wind blows it twist and blows the ice crystals into streams, that are long and thin. Cirrus clouds mainly occur in fair weather in many shapes and sizes. This cloud usually indicates that the weather will be changing in the next twenty-four hours and by their movement you can tell from which direction the weather will be approaching.

Cirrostratus clouds are so thin that you can see the moon and the sun through them. These sheetlike clouds often cover the whole sky. Because they are so transparent, sometime the only notion that they are there is the halo around the sun or the moon. The halo is a result of the light reflecting on the ice crystals. Cirrostratus clouds, when then the sun is low on the horizon, can appear is an array of colors, and usually appear twelve to twenty-four hourse before a snow or a rain storm.

Cirrocumulus clouds are small, rounded puff, almost looking like ripples in a long row. Sometimes referred to as "mackerel sky" the Cirrocumulus clouds are mostly seen during the winter and indicate cold but fair weather. They may also indicate approaching hurricanes in tropical regions.

Contrail clouds are made by jet planes, flying at high altitudes. They are made up of the condensation from the water vapor in the jet engines exhaust, and the surrounding cold air, creating water crystals, making a long thin cloud.

Middle clouds appear between 6,500 and 20,000 feet. These clouds are made up mainly of water droplets because of their low altitude, however when the temperature is cold enough, they can have ice crystals. Mid level clouds include Altocumulus clouds and altostratus clouds

Altocumulus clouds appear as gray or white puffy rounds shapes, or rolled our in side by side bands. They are lower than the Cirrus cloud, but still rather high. On a warm, humid summer morning, if Altocumulus clouds are spotted, thunderstorms are sure to follow later in the afternoon.

Altostratus clouds are composed of both ice crystals and water droplets. These gray or blue-gray clouds usually cover the whole sky. The sun and moon are bairly visiable through this cloud and may only appear as a round disk. Altostratus clouds will often form before a storm that is going to produce continuous rain.

Low clouds are clouds that form below 6,500 feet, and are made up mainly of water droplets, however if temperatures are cold enough they main have some ice crystals and snow. Low level clouds include Stratus clouds, Stratocumulus clouds and Nimbostratus clouds.

Stratus clouds can cover most of the sky, and are gray in color. They are very thin, often looking like fog in the mountains and on hills. A light mist or drizzle is often associated with a stratus cloud.

Stratocumulus cloud vary in color from light gray to a dark gray. They usually appear as low, rounded masses, with breaks of clear sky in among them. Stratocumulus clouds are often accompanied with weak percipitation.

Nimbostratus cloud are dark gray, muggy looking clouds associated with constant rain or snow. The moon and the sun are not visible through this type of cloud. Nimbostratus clouds will often produce usually light to moderate percipitation.

Verticle clouds can grow to heights that go far beyond 39,000 feet. They start out in the troposphere and can reach high into the stratosphere. These clouds include Cumulus clouds and Cumulonimbus clouds.

Cumulus clouds are white puffy clouds, that are fun to watch as they grow and change in shape and size. They are fair weather clouds, however they can grow upwards developing into a Cumulonimbus, which is a thunder cloud.

Cumulonimbus clouds as mentioned above, are thunderstorm clouds. The base of this cloud is no more than 1000 feet above Earths surface and can reach upwards to over 39,000 feet. They can form as single towers or form a row of towers wich is called a "squall line". Associated with the Cumulonimbus cloud are lighting, thunder, snow, hail and even violent tornadoes.

Other cloud types include Billow clouds, Mammatus clouds, Orographic clouds and Pileus clouds.

Billow clouds are formed from the instability of air flow. Kelvin-Helmholtz, is the common name for this instability. These clouds usually last only a few minutes. When a billow cloud is present, it is a signal to aircraft of potentially dangerous turbulence.

Mammatus clouds are harmless clouds, they are usually seen after a bad thunderstorm has moved along. This cloud is a rare example of clouds sinking in the air, and look like they have a pouch hanging out the bottom. Mammatus clouds can last a long time, as long as the sinking air contains water drops and crystals.

Orographic clouds are formed by the forced lifting of air by mountains and other of Earth's topography. When stable air comes in contact with a mountain, it is lifted up and cool as it gets higher. As the air cools the water vapors within condenses and becomes a cloud.

Pileus clouds are smooth clouds, that is usually found attached to a mountain top or a growing cumulus tower. They take on a smoother more horizontal shape, and are made of drier air than are the moist cumulus clouds.

Clouds are an importnat part of the weather forcasting. Meteorologists observe where certain clouds are and what they are doing. This allows them to be able to give a reliable extended forcast.

http://www.livescience.com/environment/051208_cloud_definition.html

http://www.weatherwizkids.com/cloud.htm

http://spaceplace.jpl.nasa.gov/en/kids/cloudsat_puz3.shtml

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu/(Gh)/guides/mtr/cld/cldtyp/home.rxml