Cloud Types
Identify the three main cloud types: cumulus (fluffy, fair weather), stratus (flat layers, overcast or drizzle), and cirrus (thin wisps, high up), and understand that clouds form when water vapour in the air cools and condenses into tiny droplets
What a learner can do afterwards
- Name and describe the three main cloud types: cumulus, stratus, cirrus
- Explain that clouds form when water vapour cools and condenses
- Use cloud type to make a simple prediction about the weather
1 · Read
Rain falls out of clouds, but clouds do not start as rain. They start as water vapour, an invisible gas in the air, even on a sunny day. When warm air carrying vapour rises high, it cools. Cool air cannot hold as much vapour, so tiny droplets stick together. Millions of droplets floating together make a cloud.
Clouds come in different shapes, and each shape has a name. Cumulus clouds are puffy and rounded, like cotton balls. Stratus clouds are flat and gray, and often cover the whole sky like a blanket. Cirrus clouds are thin wispy streaks high up. It is so cold there that cirrus is made of tiny bits of ice. All three are tiny drops or ice floating together.
Omar looks up one morning and sees big fluffy white clouds in the sky. He knows those are cumulus clouds, so he grabs his bike, expecting a fine, sunny day. His sister Zoe looks up later and sees the whole sky covered by a flat gray blanket. She knows those are stratus clouds, so she packs an umbrella just in case. Thin cirrus high up usually means fair weather too.
Next time you look up, ask yourself: Is it puffy like cotton (cumulus)? Is it a flat gray blanket (stratus)? Or is it a thin wispy streak way up high (cirrus)? The shape hints at the weather to come.
Cumulus is fluffy and usually sunny, stratus is flat and often rainy, and cirrus is thin, high, and icy, but every cloud starts as tiny drops of water or bits of ice floating together.
The rewritten reading was written for this dataset.
More to read
Read clues in the clouds
Cooling air can turn water vapour into tiny water drops or ice crystals. These make clouds, which give us weather clues.
Cirrus clouds float high overhead. Their feathery wisps are made from ice crystals in the cold air. A few against a blue sky often come with fair weather.
Look for cumulus clouds shaped like heaps of cotton wool or ice cream. Small ones often appear on sunny days. Clouds growing tall and dark may warn of a storm.
Stratus clouds spread out in a flat, grey sheet. They make the sky look overcast and may bring drizzle.
Outside, try finding these three kinds: wispy cirrus, puffy cumulus and layered stratus. Their shapes can help you guess what weather might come next.
Make a Cloud Mobile
You can make a cloud mobile that twists and turns in a gentle breeze. A mobile is a hanging craft with shapes that dangle and move.
Your mobile can have four kinds of clouds. There are puffy cumulus clouds, thin wispy cirrus clouds, tall dark cumulonimbus clouds that bring storms, and gray nimbostratus clouds that bring rain. You can even add sparkling rain showers under the rain clouds.
Each kind of cloud has a different shape, and each one can mean something different for the weather. Puffy white clouds often mean a fair day. Dark gray clouds can mean rain is on the way.
To make the mobile, you need a few easy supplies and a little patience to get the clouds balanced so they hang just right. Then hang it up and watch your clouds float and spin, just like real clouds drifting across the sky.
2 · Watch
En anglaisTake it off screen
Where it sits
Learn first
Where this leads
Jobs that lean on this skill. Follow one to see everything it is built on.
8 questions wait behind this lesson, each with its answer explained. Every answer feeds the sky: stars light as they are learned, and dim when it is time to come back.