question from my 4 year old.?

Question

he ask me this and instead of making up an answer, since i'm no meterologist, i decided to seek a more intelligent answer that a 4 year old would understand.
are the clouds full of water? and when alot of clouds get in the sky and push on each other is that what makes the rain come out?

Answer 1

What a wonderful question! Your four year old is very bright indeed! Yes, clouds are indeed full of water. What makes the rain come out is atmospheric disturbances--storm currents that electrify the air etc.

Answer 2

A cloud is a visible mass of condensed droplets or frozen crystals suspended in the atmosphere above the surface of the Earth or another planetary body. The branch of meteorology in which clouds are studied is nephology.

On Earth, the condensing substance is water vapor, which forms small droplets of water or ice crystals, typically 0.01 mm in diameter. When surrounded with billions of other droplets or crystals, they are visible as clouds. Dense deep clouds exhibit a high reflectance (70% to 95%) throughout the visible range of wavelengths: they thus appear white, at least from the top. Cloud droplets tend to scatter light very efficiently, so that the intensity of the solar radiation decreases with depth into the cloud, hence the grey or even sometimes dark appearance of the clouds at their base. Thin clouds may appear to have acquired the color of their environment or background, and clouds illuminated by non-white light, such as during sunrise or sunset, may be colored accordingly. In the near-infrared range, however, clouds would appear very dark because the water that constitutes the cloud droplets strongly absorbs solar radiation at these wavelengths.

Answer 3

I'm no meteorologist either, but I'll take a stab at it...clouds rolling against each other are more likely to produce lightning, or even a tornado, than rain. Rain itself has a lot to do with temperature, relative humidity, and barometric pressure, but basically, when clouds become too dense to hold water as a gas, it's going to fall as rain, sleet, or snow. (Hail is a different process).

Answer 4

you can explain it to him like this (you can even do a little experiment with him to show him). Water evaporates like when you boil water. The evaporated water makes clouds in the sky. When the sky has alot of water in it, the water makes drops and falls. The best way to show him this is to boil a pot of water, take a plate or the cover of teh pot and hold it over the steam. Tell him that the cover (or plate) is like teh sky. The water will bead up and eventually fall.

Answer 5

He is right to some degree. Clouds are composed of smaller water droplets that can collide (as clouds do) and become larger. If a droplet becomes to large, it falls to the ground as rain or snow. You should put him a science academy because he's a thinker. Really, tap his interest he could go exceptional places.

Answer 6

Hi,
Below is quoted from one of the sites I listed. But I think it explains it nicely.

What are clouds?

Clouds are made up of millions of tiny droplets of water and ice.
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.

http://alex.edfac.usyd.edu.au/BLP/Sample%20lessons/MOXHAM.DATA/html/page2.html

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

I love it when kids ask questions like this, they are so precious.

Answer 7

Clouds are condensed droplets of water but too small to fall.
Rain happens when they grow big enough into a drop when there is a wind blowing or the air gets cooler around them.

Answer 8

The clouds are made of water, and when they get big enough the rain comes out.
(This is true clouds are water vapor, like steam, when enough water vaper has gathered rain drops fall.)

Answer 9

clouds are created by condensation or evaporated water. the water vapor collects on a dust particle (just like steam on the shower mirror) and when there is too much water on the particle it drips from the sky as rain or snow.

Answer 10

I do beleive.
The clouds are filled with condensation and such. When the wetness builds up so much in the cloud and it can't hold it anymore, that's why it rains. Don't quote me, I really didn't like earth science.