Cloudspeak

High clouds ...
Cirrus clouds are ice clouds. They can look like delicate white feathers or streamers. They are always more than three miles up where the temperature is below freezing, even in summer. Wind currents twist and spread the ice crystals into wispy strands.

Contrails are made by high-flying jet airplanes. They are still clouds, though, because they are made of water droplets condensed from the water vapor in the exhaust of the jet engines.

Mid-level Clouds ...

Cumulus clouds are the fluffy, white cotton ball or cauliflower-looking clouds with sharp outlines. They are "fair weather clouds" and they are fun to watch as they grow and change in shape and size. Cumulus clouds make beautiful sunsets.

Cumulonimbus clouds are a sure sign of bad weather to come--at least bad if you don't like rain and hail! These clouds grow on hot days when warm, wet air rises very high into the sky. Up and down winds within the cloud may push water droplets up to very cold parts of the atmosphere, where they freeze. When the ice drops come back down, they get another coating of water and are pushed back up to freeze again. Finally, they get too heavy to stay in the cloud and fall to the Earth as hail stones.

Altocumulus clouds have white or gray patches or layers, and seem to be made up of round shapes. They are lower than cirrus clouds, but still quite high. They are made of liquid water, but seldom make rain.

Low-level Clouds ...

Stratus clouds often look like thin, white sheets covering the whole sky. Since they are so thin, they seldom produce much rain or snow. Sometimes, in the mountains or hills, these clouds appear to be fog.

Special Clouds ...

Mammatus clouds are actually altocumulus, cirrus, cumulonimbus, or other types of clouds that have these pouch-like shapes hanging out of the bottom.

Orographic cloudsget their shape from mountains or hills that force the air to move over or around them.

Lenticular clouds are shaped like lenses or almonds or...flying saucers! They may get their shape from hilly terrain (another type of orographic cloud) or just the way the air is rising over flat terrain.

What more could we possibly want to know about clouds? Here's what!