Cloud Formation Flashcards
How clouds form?
When dry air rises and reaches 100% saturation. It must condense to release liquid. (This is as higher up, the colder it is & the less water that can be held). It condensed into visible water droplets or ice crystals - this makes clouds.
The requirements for clouds
Water vapour
Condensation nuclei
A cooling mechanism- bringing air to dew point/100% saturation levels.
Cooling can result from
Convection
Turbulence
Frontal lifting
Orographic lifting (up a mountain side)
Convective cloud convection is cloud warmed from
Rising warm air from surface level
Turbulence cloud formation is
Hot air / cold air mixed around creating clouds
(The 3 basic cloud shapes)
Stratus
Horizontal, layered cloud
(The 3 basic cloud shapes)
Cirrus
Thin lines
(The 3 basic cloud shapes)
Cumulus
Instability, heaped, convective cloud, big and fluffy
Low level cloud has which prefix?…
Which altitudes?
No prefix
Surface to 6500ft
Medium level cloud has which prefix?…
Which altitudes?
Alto
6500ft to 23,000ft
High level cloud has which prefix?…
Which altitudes?
Cirro
16,000ft to 45,000ft
Which 2 clouds could be at any altitudes? And which one is likely to carry rain?
Cumulonimbus
Nimbostratus (carries rain)
Which cloud has a halo around sun effect?
Cirrostratus
When are ice crystals and water droplets most likely? And between what temperatures?
The lower the cloud, the more likely ice crystals and water droplets.
Between 0⚫️C and -20⚫️C
When is ice more likely to form
When there’s colder temperature
