what are clouds made of?

Answer 1

Not very good answers to this one. Someone was naming the clouds and they had them all wrong. Anyway of course clouds are mostly water. If a plane flies through a cloud it gets wet. The dust everyone is talking about is called condensation nuclei. You have to have it in order for clouds to form. Air rises (for one reason or another - see my answer to "why does it rain more during the summer") and as it rises it cools off. Ever leave a glass of ice water sitting out? The outside of the glass gets wet because the glass cooled the air around it. It's called condensation. When air rises it also cools (because it cold up there) and then the water is "squeezed" out of the air and forms clouds... with the help of condensation nuclei keeping it all together. When the rain gets too heavy for that particular type of cloud (there are 27 different types) the rain falls. There may be ice in the cloud depending on where in the atmosphere it forms. Is it below or above the freezing level? Sometime the freezing level is right in the middle of the cloud so you have a mixture of rain and snow in there. Some rain starts out as snow and melts before it reaches the earth. Hail is formed in thunderstorms. It is rain that was "blown" up above the freezing level by updrafts in the cloud. Then it freezes and falls the the ground. Large hail forms due to strong updrafts that keeps sending the hail back up. So a small piece of hail forms, falls, melts a little, and then gets shot back up and another layer of ice forms on the hail. Then it falls again and it will either get blown back up or fall to the ground. Depending on how strong the updrafts and and how heavy the hail gets. Sometimes the updrafts get so strong that hail gets shot out the top of the cloud and can fall some place where it isn't raining. Crazy huh? Well a little more info than you asked for but I try to be thorough.

Answer 2

Clouds are made of small droplets of water or bits of ice that are spread out from each other. Rain falls when the drops get too big and heavy to stay in the cloud. There are three main kinds of clouds: cirrus,cumulus and,stratus. Each of these droplets of water is smaller than a grain of flour, and they are so light that they can float on air. When pilots in airplanes fly through clouds they can see nothing but clouds. It's like being inside a thick fog or a steamy room.

Answer 3

Usually a little bit of dust and a lot of water vapor, and the density and form of the cloud depends on temperature, humidity and altitude. Fog is the lowest altitude cloud (at ground level), while others are named partly for their shapes (nimbus clouds being shaped like cotton or wool balls), and partly for the altitude at which they form (-stratus type clouds tend to form in the upper stratosphere). Generally, warmer clouds hold more water, but need more dust and other particles to seed droplets for rain, hail, sleet and snow...nearly all precipitation can be described as either the movement of clouds from one temperature zone (warm/cold fronts) to another, or from one area to another by wind....

but yeah, clouds on earth are mainly water and dust. Which is why your mother never believed your clothes were clean if you got them wet out in the rain--she knew better. ;)

Answer 4

they're made out of millions of tiny drops of water and ice! Im not lying!!

Each of these droplets of water is smaller than a grain of flour, and they are so light that they can float on air.

When pilots in airplanes fly through clouds they can see nothing but clouds. It's like being inside a thick fog or a steamy room.

Answer 5

you immagine water boiling in a pot. the vapour that raises accumulates at roof.
exactly, when water evaporates from ocean, seas, rivers and wet lands it accumulates at the sky where the temp is very low overthere.

then when the accumulation process reaches the saturation conditions, rain falls.
I hope that gives you an answer

Answer 6

clouds are a composition of water vapour along with dust and dirt

Answer 7

Evapourated water that is condensing at a high altitude. When a certain mass is attained it falls back to earth as rain.

Answer 8

clouds are made up of water vapour and dust

Answer 9

Water vapor and condensation or something along those lines I think!!

Answer 10

Most of it is water vapor and some dissolved gases.