How much rain can a cloud hold?

A large cumulus cloud that you might find on a nice summer day is made up of about 1 million pounds of water drops. A thunderstorm cloud contains enough water drops to fill up approximately 275 million gallon jars. That's about 2.3 billion pounds, or 1.1 million tons of water.

How much water does a cloud hold?

A 1 cubic kilometer (km³⁾ cloud contains 1 billion cubic meters. Doing the math: 1,000,000,000 x 0.5 = 500,000,000 grams of water droplets in our cloud. That is about 500,000 kilograms or 1.1 million pounds (about 551 tons).

Can clouds hold rain?

Within a cloud, water droplets condense onto one another, causing the droplets to grow. When these water droplets get too heavy to stay suspended in the cloud, they fall to Earth as rain.

How big does a cloud have to be to rain?

The prefix "nimbo-" or the suffix "-nimbus" are low-level clouds that have their bases below 2,000 meters (6,500 feet) above the Earth. Clouds that produce rain and snow fall into this category.

How do clouds hold so much water?

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. Basically, it's the same with snow, but a cloud holding snow or ice crystals must be colder.

How do clouds hold so much rain?

Why don't clouds run out of water?

Clouds are composed primarily of small water droplets and, if it's cold enough, ice crystals. The vast majority of clouds you see contain droplets and/or crystals that are too small to have any appreciable fall velocity. So the particles continue to float with the surrounding air.

How long does water stay in clouds?

A drop of water may spend over 3,000 years in the ocean before evaporating into the air, while a drop of water spends an average of just nine days in the atmosphere before falling back to Earth.

Can you touch a rain cloud?

For reference, raindrops are usually 1 or 2 mm but can be as large as 4 - 5 mm, so this is at least 100 times smaller than a raindrop. Nonetheless, if you were to be able to touch a cloud, it wouldn't really feel like anything, just a little wet.

How cold is it inside a cloud?

The sky temperature is just above freezing (34 degrees Fahrenheit or 1 degree Celsius). The cloud temperature is considerably warmer (65 degrees F or 18 degrees C).

How big is the biggest rain cloud?

Peaks typically reach to as much as 12,000 m (39,000 ft), with extreme instances as high as 21,000 m (69,000 ft) or more.

How heavy is a rain cloud?

Answer: Thus, a 'typical' fair weather cumulus cloud "weighs" about 1 billion 400 million pounds, or about 800 million pounds less than dry air of equal volume. Thats a lot of weight!

How do clouds not run out of rain?

Updrafts, winds that blow upward from the surface of the Earth, also help keep droplets in cloud form. These droplets have to join together or get heavier from more water condensing in the air before they can fall as rain. Once it starts raining, it will keep raining if the conditions in the air are right.

Can clouds fall to the ground?

Even though a cloud weighs tons, it doesn't fall on you because the rising air responsible for its formation keeps the cloud floating in the air. The air below the cloud is denser than the cloud, thus the cloud floats on top of the denser air nearer the land surface.

Are clouds 100% water?

Clouds are not 100 percent water. They also contain salt, dust, and other particles and chemical substances. There are ten different types of clouds, and each one can provide valuable information about current and future weather conditions.

What is the heaviest cloud?

Cumulonimbus clouds are associated with extreme weather such as heavy torrential downpours, hail storms, lightning and even tornadoes.

Do clouds fill up with water?

Strictly speaking, a cloud does not fill up with water. First of all, a cloud is not a sponge made out of some other material which soaks up water. The water in a cloud is the cloud. More accurately, a cloud consists of very small liquid water drops or ice crystals suspended in air.

Is the inside of a cloud wet?

While it's true that clouds contain water, they actually aren't made of water vapor. If they were, you wouldn't be able to see them. The water that makes up clouds is in liquid or ice form. The air around us is partially made up of invisible water vapor.

Do clouds carry snow?

Thick, dense stratus or stratocumulus clouds producing steady rain or snow often are referred to as nimbostratus clouds. In contrast to layered, horizontal stratus, cumulus clouds are more cellular (individual) in nature, have flat bottoms and rounded tops, and grow vertically.

Can I walk on a cloud?

No. Clouds are just fog at higher altitude: micronic water droplet in a lot of air (or sometime micronic ice crystal in a lot of air).

Can a cloud hold a person?

Save this answer. Show activity on this post. Clouds can hold no weight at all. They are not a coherent material, but consist mostly of air, with tiny droplets of water (or ice crystals) suspended in it.

Has anyone tasted a cloud?

The only side effects that you might notice are flatulence and misleading scale readings. However, one can't technically eat a cloud, as that would be like saying you're eating water, which is an impossible feat.

Can you trap a cloud in a jar?

Place a 3-5 pieces of ice on top of the lid of the jar. Watch the top of the jar carefully and you will see a cloud begin to form. After observing the cloud in the jar, remove the lid and watch the cloud escape out of the jar.

Why do clouds turn GREY?

As the size and concentration of the hydrometeors increases, less and less sunlight penetrates the cloud, resulting in multiple scattering. We perceive these clouds as dark clouds in varying shades of grey.

Why do clouds look fluffy?

If a cloud contains more ice particles than water droplets (or all ice particles) it appear to have a "fluffy" edge to it (example: Cirrus clouds). The wind blows the ice crystals giving a wispy, thin white appearance. Clouds that contain mostly water droplets (example: Cumulus clouds) often have a very distinct edge.

Which is heavier water or air?

Water is heavier than air because it is DENSER. This means that more water molecules are packed into a given volume.