Ways to remember the clouds in the atmosphere? Any ideas?

Question

Examples of these clouds are cirrus, cumulonimbus, stratus, nimbostratus. Does anyone have any ideas on how to memorize the clouds (there are more then what I listed)?Please keep in mind that I want a technique that can help me memorize it from top to bottom. Thanks.

Answer 1

nimbus means rain.
stratus is like layered clouds.
cumulus clouds are big fluffy 'balls of cotton'.
cirrus clouds are very tiny clouds( lace-like) formed very high in the sky.
So, a nimbostratus cloud is a cloud that is layered and has rain falling from it. A stratus cloud is a cloud that is layered but no rain.

M. Clark

Answer 2

As per the heights of the bases of the clouds,they have been classified into three types.They are low clouds,medium clouds and high clouds.Medium clouds start with the letter 'Alto' and the high clouds starts with 'Cirro'.Further the clouds can be classified according to their appearance.They are stratiform(flat type) and cumuliform(vertically grown-cauliflower type).Such clouds will have a name containing the words ,'strata' and 'cumulus' respectively.If you remember these words,read the following in the folowing sequence.Type of cloud--Low cloud--Medium cloud--High cloud.
Stratiform> Stratus> Altostratus> cirrostratus
Cumuliform> Cumulus> Altocumulus> cirrocumulus.
General form> Stratocumulus>----------> Cirrus.

Apart from the above eight clouds,there is one more cloud.It is called cumulonimbus which gives rain with thunderstorm.This comes under low cloud catagory.Sometimes a cloud called Nimbostratus(which gives continuos rain) is also added to the cloud list.But the name is usually combined with stratiform or cumuliform clouds .One example is the above mentioned cumulonimbus cloud.