What are Clouds actually made of, Why are they White and how does it Rain?

If you’re like an average person you might say the clouds are the result of evaporation of water from the surface but that’s the most simplest  explanation possible and lets face it that's almost the same explanation that a 3^rd grader  can produce.
 Yes and this hurts our pride so let us dig into this matter further and see what the exact process is involved.

What are clouds made of ?

In meteorology a cloud is defined as a visible mass of  Liquid droplets or ice crystals usually  made of water or other chemicals. These droplets are suspended in the atmosphere by a huge body (earth).

How do clouds form ?

Cloud formation can be described in 2 simple steps.

1. Water from the surface turns into vapours as it evaporates into the sky.

2. cloud forms when an area of air becomes enough cooler for vapours to condense to liquid droplets (These droplets are present in the sky but are not visible), At that instant the air is said to be saturated (filled with moisture) with water vapour.

Conditions:

• The area where the clouds form must be cool enough for the air to condense.

• Condensation nuclei such as Ice, dust or sea salt must be present as these things trigger condensation.

Other factors such as temperature and conditions determine what type of cloud will be formed.

Why do clouds appear white ?

You might have asked your self

Okay the clouds are made of water

But hey water is transparent then why the heck are clouds white?

Clouds appear white because the whole of sunlight is reflected from it without being absorbed or scattered like Rayleigh scattering of the atmosphere. The white light scatters in all directions and thus appears white regardless of the position of observer.

 Types of Clouds:

Another popular question is exactly how high up are the clouds? Well there is no fixed answer for that because the altitude of clouds varies according to their type.

So how many types of clouds are there? On the basis of their shapes and altitudes the clouds are categorized into 10 following types:

1. High altitude: Cirrus, Cirrocumulus and Cirrostratus (5 to 12 km).

2. Mid altitude: Altocumulus and Altostratus (2 to 7 km).

3. Multi-level: Nimbostratus large cumulus, and Cumulonimbus (12 km).

4. Low altitude: Stratocumulus, Stratus and small Cumulus -near surface (2.0 km).

  What does it feel like to touch the clouds ?

I’m sure all of you guys are way over the fact that these clouds feel nothing like cotton.

Its true but what does it feel like and what if you touched one. The reality is that you might even have walked into one several times, Hard to believe?  Well if you didn’t already know then I’m gong to break it to you that Fog is also a kind of cloud which touches the ground. It forms when the air near the ground cools enough to turn water vapor into Liquid or ice.

So the answer to the question what does a cloud feel like is: Its just a cold sensation and poor visibility

How does it Rain ?

Mostly the water droplets present in clouds are in small quantity but sometimes the concentration of these droplets increases and so does there size, at that moment gravity causes the water droplets to fall faster and the falling of these water drops is rain. When the temperature is much colder these falling drops of water may form snowflakes and when the temperature is more severe it results in hail.

Conclusion:

Now if a junior or your senior asks you what are clouds made of then you’ve got an amazing story to tell.

And if you think that you know an awful lot about clouds after reading this article then you’re going to be astounded if I tell you that there is a whole study dedicated to this field called cloud physics.