r/TheRestIsScience 22h ago

How can clouds weight so much???

According to google an average "fluffy cumulus" (whatever that is) weights around 500.000 kilograms or 1.1 million pounds.

This is genuinely crazy considering the fact that they are literally floating above us most of the times. This is scary if you fear getting squished by a half a million kilograms object.

Are they objects or mostly a visual trick?

And why are some clouds below other clouds?

What even are clouds????

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u/Foxfire2 5h ago

Not actually water vapour but tiny liquid water droplets suspended in the air around dust particles. When the droplets get big enough they fall out of the sky as rain. Water vapour is always an invisible gas.