Clouds, up in the sky!

  Clouds, you think of it as a big, white, cotton like thing floating in the midst of air. But do you know the types of clouds there are? For a fact, there are about 27 different named clouds. The common clouds we see are mostly Altocumulus, Stratus, and Cirrus. Low clouds are Stratus, middle cloud is Altocumulus, and high cloud is Cirrus. I'm sure that the average of people have heard of Cumulus clouds instead of Altocumulus. Cumulus clouds are considered middle, but with a vertical growth. If this cloud is seen you may have good or bad weather. Cumulonimbus clouds were derived from Cumulus clouds, they are way bigger and are also known as "Thunderstorm," clouds. The suffix or sometimes prefix,"nimbo" gives association with rain. Cumulonimbus clouds can bring lightning, hail, rain, snow, and even tornadoes! Another "nimbo" cloud is the Nimbostratus, which as you can guess is a very low thundercloud. With the dark storm-like appearance and being low, it can seem like the cloud covers the sky! Contrails are interesting clouds made up from airplanes. Water vapor in the high air and the airplanes exhaust allow the vapor to freeze and condense thus allowing the contrails to be formed! Contrails is short for Condensation Trail. It is very interesting to learn about clouds and cloud watching is fun, it gets you close to the outdoors.

Here is an interesting cloud researching website: http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/Atmosphere/clouds/cloud_types.html

Altocumulus Clouds

Stratus Clouds