why do clouds travel

• September 18, 2019
• Uncategorized

The Science Behind Moving Clouds: Why and How Fast Do Clouds Move?

If you’ve ever been outside on a fairly cloudy day, you might have noticed that clouds hardly ever stay still. Sometimes, you might see them moving ever so slightly, like you wouldn’t notice they were moving until you looked away and looked back up a few minutes later. Other times, you might have also seen a cloud visibly moving across the sky.

The truth, however, is that clouds aren’t actively moving on their own. What you’re looking at is actually the product of condensed water vapor being blown away by the atmosphere in the sky. In this article, we’re going to explain why clouds move and how wind determines the speed of how fast (or slow) clouds move and how that also determines clouds’ shape.

Are Clouds Moving or Is the Earth Just Spinning?

A big misconception a lot of people have is that when you see clouds move , they’re not actually moving. Rather, it’s supposed to be the Earth spinning around and what we actually see is the sky spinning around the clouds, not the other way around.

While the Earth’s spinning does have an effect, you’re not seeing the Earth spinning. Because of gravity, you don’t feel that you’re moving 1600 kilometers per hour while you sit still, right? Because that’s the speed of the Earth spinning, assuming you live near the equator (the speed is much slower if you live closer to the North and South Pole).

But the Earth’s spinning does have an effect on how you see the clouds moving because its spin affects the wind, even in high altitudes. And it’s that wind that makes clouds move in certain directions. In common cases, you can see that the clouds are moving in the direction the wind is passing.

However, it’s common to feel the wind heading east but see the clouds moving west. This is because the winds up there aren’t always moving in the same direction as the wind down here. The random winds can be due to several factors like air movement, and heat from the sun.

How Clouds Are Formed

We’ve covered how clouds are created in a previous article Flat Clouds, Round Clouds, Wispy Clouds: The Science Behind Clouds and Their Shapes , but here’s a quick recap: clouds are formed as part of the water cycle when water vapors float up the air to a certain altitude in the sky.

The sun heats up the ground and evaporates water via evaporation and transpiration. When this vapor reaches a certain altitude, the air has become too cold for the moisture to rise up, so it condenses into the water droplets and ice crystals that make up the clouds.

There are various factors that affect a cloud’s shape. If more water vapor continues to float up, it can push older water droplets upwards, forming a cloud with a puffy top. If you’ve noticed how most clouds have a flat base, this flat line is actually the point where the atmosphere starts to get too cold for vapor.

Wind can also affect the shape of a cloud. Because it’s possible for wind to randomly move around clouds, it can push two clouds together, separate chunks off a cloud, or make some parts of a cloud look thin and wispy.

How Fast Do Clouds Move?

Technically, it’s not the clouds that are moving. Rather, it’s the wind and air that passes through or around the clouds that make it appear like it is the one moving. In reality, if a cloud were to remain in the same place with no wind moving on it, its temperature wouldn’t be cold enough to condense water droplets and it would have remained as water vapor.

Therefore, a cloud moves as fast as the wind moves. However, not all clouds can be moved around. If there is plenty of moisture, water droplets, and ice crystals to form fluffy-looking opaque clouds, the density of the cloud can withstand strong speeds. But if the clouds are thin and wispy, strong winds can break apart the clouds.

Clouds During Rain

Because warm air has more moisture than cold air, when cold air passes through it, it drops in temperature to a point where the vapor condenses, causing it to rain. The reason why you feel that the air is slightly warm and humid before it rains is because of the air in high altitude is the cold air sweeping upwards, leaving the warm moisture-filled air at the bottom.

Vertical vs. Horizontal Movement

Usually, you’ll find clouds moving horizontally. If you see a cloud on the left side of a mountain one minute, depending on the wind speed, you might eventually see that it has moved to the right side. This horizontal movement is due to wind.

However, it’s possible to notice clouds moving vertically. That is, at one point you might see a cloud much lower slightly rise up further in the sky. This is due to convection, which is rising hot air from the ground moving upwards. This hot air can cause clouds to move upwards where the air is colder.

To sum it up, clouds aren’t really moving, technically. What you do see, however, is the act of water vapor condensing at a certain altitude while also being moved by the wind. While there’s generally no need to be concerned by moving clouds, the speed of its movement can be an indicator of the current or upcoming weather. However, this isn’t always accurate, so it’s best to check in with your local news report or weather app to provide better, more accurate details on the possible weather later in the day.

Alex Mitchell

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Basic Facts Everyone Should Know About Clouds

• Understanding Your Forecast
• Storms & Other Phenomena

• B.S., Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, University of North Carolina

Clouds may look like big, fluffy marshmallows in the sky, but in reality, they are visible collections of tiny water droplets (or ice crystals, if it's cold enough) that live high in the atmosphere above the Earth's surface. Here, we discuss the science of clouds: how they form, move, and change color. 

Clouds form when a parcel of air rises from the surface up into the atmosphere. As the parcel ascends, it passes through lower and lower pressure levels (pressure decreases with height). Recall that air tends to move from higher to lower pressure areas, so as the parcel travels into lower pressure areas, the air inside of it pushes outward, causing it to expand. This expansion uses heat energy, and therefore cools the air parcel. The farther upward it travels, the more it cools. When its temperature cools to that of its dew point temperature, the water vapor inside of the parcel condenses into droplets of liquid water. These droplets then collect on the surfaces of dust, pollen, smoke, dirt, and sea salt particles called nuclei . (These nuclei are hygroscopic, meaning they attract water molecules.) It is at this point—when water vapor condenses and settles onto condensation nuclei—that clouds form and become visible.

Have you ever watched a cloud long enough to see it expanding outward, or looked away for a moment only to find that when you look back its shape has changed? If so, you'll be glad to know it isn't your imagination. The shapes of clouds are ever-changing thanks to the processes of condensation and evaporation.

After a cloud forms, condensation doesn't stop. This is why we sometimes notice clouds expanding into the neighboring sky. But as currents of warm, moist air continue to rise and feed condensation, drier air from the surrounding environment eventually infiltrates the buoyant column of air in a process called entrainment . When this drier air is introduced into the cloud body, it evaporates the cloud's droplets and causes parts of the cloud to dissipate.

Clouds start out high up in the atmosphere because that's where they're created, but they remain suspended thanks to the tiny particles they contain.

A cloud's water droplets or ice crystals are very small, less than a micron (that's less than one-millionth of a meter). Because of this, they respond very slowly to gravity . To help visualize this concept, consider a rock and a feather. Gravity affects each, however the rock falls quickly whereas the feather gradually drifts to the ground because of its lighter weight. Now compare a feather and an individual cloud droplet particle; the particle will take even longer than the feather to fall, and because of the particle's tiny size, the slightest movement of air will keep it aloft. Because this applies to each cloud droplet, it applies to the entire cloud itself.

Clouds travel with the upper-level winds . They move at the same speed and in the same direction as the prevailing wind at the cloud's level (low, middle, or high).

High-level clouds are among the fastest moving because they form near the top of the troposphere and are pushed by the jet stream.

A cloud's color is determined by the light it receives from the Sun. (Recall that the Sun emits white light; that white light is made up of all the colors in the visible spectrum: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet; and that each color in the visible spectrum represents an electromagnetic wave of a different length.)

The process works like this: As the Sun's lightwaves pass through the atmosphere and clouds , they meet the individual water droplets that make up a cloud. Because the water droplets have a similar size as the wavelength of sunlight, the droplets scatter the Sun's light in a type of scattering known as Mie scattering in which all wavelengths of light are scattered. Because all wavelengths are scattered, and together all colors in the spectrum make up white light, we see white clouds.

In the case of thicker clouds, such as stratus, sunlight passes through but is blocked. This gives the cloud a grayish appearance.

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How Clouds Work

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Gazing up, you might see a few fluffy bunnies drift by, followed by a fleet of racing sailboats . Finally, the handful of ominous tumbling masses that roll in abruptly ends an afternoon spent gazing at the clouds.

So just where do these clouds come from, and how do they make rain , sleet and snow? Before we get into how clouds work, let's get familiar with all the different types of clouds we see drifting overhead.

­Basically, clouds are differentiated by altitude and by shape. This work was pioneered by Luke Howard at the beginning of the 19th century. From his work, we now classify clouds in a couple of ways. The clearest way to understand this system is to examine the Latin roots of the words.

The main types of clouds are:

• Cumulus (meaning "heap" or "pile"): flat on the bottom with big billowy tops
• Stratus (meaning "layer"): short and spread across great distances
• Cirrus (meaning "curl of hair"): wispy and thin
• Nimbus (meaning "rain" or "rainy cloud"): likely to bring precipitation

These clouds don't look much like each other, but they all form through the same basic steps. In this article, you'll learn about this process, along with how clouds make rain and why you can see bright blue clouds in some places at twilight.­

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How Fast Do Clouds Travel Complete Analysis!

How fast do clouds travel? In this article, we’ll go through the basics of clouds and their movement, from whether they move to how and why they move.

We’ll look at the elements that influence cloud movement , including how quickly they move and how far they go.

So, keep reading!

Clouds often move at rates of 30 to 250 miles per hour. However, the pace of cloud movement is influenced by several factors, including wind conditions.

How Fast Do Clouds Move on Average?

The average speed of the clouds cannot be estimated precisely since several sorts of fluctuations are difficult to determine.

To determine the actual speed of clouds, several parameters must be measured. 

Certain values, however, provide an approximate measurement of the movement, making it simpler to determine the speed.

The speed is determined by the environment and the kind of cloud.

For example, towering cirrus clouds may move at speeds of more than 100 mph during the jet stream.

During a thunderstorm, clouds may move up to 40 miles per hour.

How to Measure the Speed of the Clouds Movement

How fast do clouds travel?

To measure the speed, you must first determine the velocity and density and then develop a formula to calculate the speed.

Because of differences in density, different kinds of clouds have different speed ranges.

For instance:

In general, wind speed rises with height and near the surface. However, there are times when this may not be the case, particularly when air pressure is high.

Those are when we feel the wind softly flowing about us, yet see the puffs scarcely moving in the sky above.

The wind’s movement determines the speed of the clouds. As a result, the movement is caused directly by the wind.

To determine the rate of the cloud, observe how quickly the wind is moving.

As a result, every cloud in the sky moves due to a game of wind. The speed of cloud movement varies with the velocity of the wind and the density of the cloud.

What are the Factors Affecting Clouds Movement?

The following is a list of the things that might influence the speed and movement of the cloud :

1. Orographic Lifting

Orographic lifting is another feature that causes a cloud to move. Orographic lifting is simply air movement from a lower height to a much higher level.

This is not a deliberate activity; it occurs when the air is pushed to ascend over an elevated landscape.

For example, if a massive amount of air collides with the edge of a mountain, it is pushed to go higher. As a consequence, a cloud forms and is pushed to move.

2. Inversion of the Temperature

We may also get thermal inversion when we have pleasant and steady weather in the winter.

In this case, the warmer air mass rising with height traps the colder air mass below it.

3. Solar Radiation

Solar radiation contributes to the movement of clouds by driving the process of convection , which is a part of the process.

The warmth that comes from the sun causes the particles in the air to become warmer; consequently, the warmer air assists in the movement of the clouds.

4. Factories and Industrial Plants

The movement of clouds is also significantly influenced by factories, which are another important source.

Most manufacturing facilities have chimneys that release significant quantities of smoke and other pollutants.

Consequently, those gasses often combine with the clouds in the sky; hence, the clouds travel in the same direction that the smoke is billowing.

5. The Direction of the Wind

It is very important to keep in mind that the direction in which the wind blows affects the clouds’ path.

Because of the wind blowing direction, there are times when the clouds travel horizontally, and there are other times when they move vertically.

If you are a nature enthusiast like me and like visiting the wild, you may observe a cloud on one side of the mountain and then see it on the other after a few seconds.

The horizontal movement of shadows is caused by wind. Clouds may travel vertically as well.

We sometimes observe a cloud hanging low in the sky, gradually rising higher. It is produced by hot air rising from below, a process called convection.  

Clouds in such situations tend to travel higher, where the air is colder. Clouds travel vertically as water vapor condenses at various heights while being pushed by the wind.

How Far Can a Cloud Travel?

The answer to this question depends on where a cloud is positioned in the atmosphere . This is because wind speeds vary at various heights of the atmosphere.

The lower the cloud is in the atmosphere, the lighter the wind , and hence the cloud moves slower . 

On the other hand, the wind becomes stronger higher up in the sky , causing the clouds to move quicker .

On the other hand, the ordinary cloud may move several hundred miles in a day, and it can travel between 50 and 100 miles daily.

Do Clouds Ever Ground to a Stop?

Clouds are an ever-present element of the earth’s atmosphere. These clouds of condensed water vapor rise and travel long distances with the wind.

People are typically curious about how clouds move and if they ever cease moving. 

We’ve previously spoken about how clouds travel in the sky. The second half of the question is answered by the fact that clouds never cease moving.

Even though they seem to us to be motionless, they are continually moving through the environment.

Clouds are an element of the ever-changing environment. We can notice cloud movement because we can see them in the sky.

Even immobile, the small water droplets within the cloud constantly move and change positions .

Because the earth’s atmosphere is heated at various levels, the clouds may move constantly. The cloud moves due to an imbalance in the energy in the atmosphere.

Clouds move even when there is no breeze. However, some of the motion of clouds is produced by the earth’s rotation.

FAQs About How Fast Do Clouds Travel?

Do you have more questions about how fast clouds travel? Here are some questions about clouds.

Why Do Clouds Travel?

Earth’s atmosphere consists of gases, clouds, and the sky. The wind is created when air moves from a heated to a cold place .

Warmer air goes to another part of the sky to warm colder air. Wind moves clouds.

Can You Reach Out and Touch a Cloud?

Clouds are formed when millions of these tiny droplets of liquid water come together.

Because the drops diffuse the colors of the sunlight uniformly, the clouds seem white.

What is the Cloud that Moves the Quickest?

Cirrus clouds at high altitudes are propelled forward by the jet stream and may reach speeds of more than 100 miles per hour.

Clouds associated with thunderstorms often move 30 to 40 miles per hour.

Final Verdict

How fast do clouds travel? The speed at which clouds travel is determined by the height at which they form , as discussed above.

Low clouds may occur at elevations of 5,000 feet. 

Cirrus clouds arise at elevations of 30,000 feet or above. High clouds are often driven by a jet stream (fast-moving air), which may reach speeds up to 100 km/hr.

Clouds normally travel at a pace of 30-40 km/hr during a thunderstorm.

Thanks for reading!

Clouds are visible accumulations of tiny water droplets or ice crystals in Earth’s atmosphere.

Earth Science, Meteorology, Geography, Physical Geography

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Clouds are visible accumulations of tiny water droplets or ice crystals in Earth’s atmosphere . Clouds differ greatly in size, shape, and color. They can appear thin and wispy, or bulky and lumpy. Clouds usually appear white because the tiny water droplets inside them are tightly packed, reflecting most of the sunlight that hits them. White is how our eyes perceive all wavelengths of sunlight mixed together. When it’s about to rain, clouds darken because the water vapor is clumping together into raindrops , leaving larger spaces between drops of water. Less light is reflected. The rain cloud appears black or gray. Clouds form when air becomes saturated , or filled, with water vapor. Warm air can hold more water vapor than cold air, so lowering the temperature of an air mass is like squeezing a sponge. Clouds are the visible result of that squeeze of cooler, moist air. Moist air becomes cloudy with only slight cooling. With further cooling, the water or ice particles that make up the cloud can grow into bigger particles that fall to Earth as precipitation .

Types of Clouds Because certain types of clouds are associated with certain types of weather , it is possible to forecast the weather by observing and understanding these different types of clouds. Clouds are classified into three main groups: cirrus , stratus , and cumulus . Cirrus clouds are wispy, curly, or stringy. They are found high in the atmosphere—typically higher than 6,000 meters (20,000 feet)—and are usually made of ice crystals. Cirrus clouds usually signal clear, fair weather. Their shape often indicates the direction the wind is blowing high in the atmosphere. Stratus clouds are horizontal and stratified, or layered. Stratus clouds can blanket the entire sky in a single pattern. They usually occur close to Earth. Stratus clouds often form at the boundary of a warm front , where warm, moist air is forced up over cold air. This movement produces clouds as the moist air is cooled across the entire front. The presence of stratus clouds usually means a chilly, overcast day. If precipitation falls from stratus clouds, it is usually in the form of drizzle or light snow . Cumulus clouds are large and lumpy. Their name comes from the Latin word meaning "heap" or "pile." They can stretch vertically into the atmosphere up to 12,000 meters (39,000 feet) high. Cumulus clouds are created by strong updrafts of warm, moist air. Most forms of heavy precipitation fall from cumulus clouds. The weather they bring depends on their height and size. The higher the base of a cloud is, the drier the atmosphere and the fairer the weather will be. Clouds located close to the ground mean heavy snow or rain.

Variations Clouds are also classified according to how high they are in the atmosphere and what kind of weather they produce. The prefix "cirro-" refers to clouds that lie more than 6,000 meters (20,000 feet) above the Earth. Cirrocumulus and cirrostratus clouds are two examples of these “high-level” clouds. The prefix "alto-" indicates clouds whose bases are between 2,000 and 6,000 meters (6,500-20,000 feet) above Earth, such as altocumulus and altostratus clouds. They are considered "mid-level" clouds and are mostly made of liquid water droplets, but can have some ice crystals in cold enough temperatures. The prefix "nimbo-" or the suffix "-nimbus" are low-level clouds that have their bases below 2,000 meters (6,500 feet) above Earth. Clouds that produce rain and snow fall into this category. ("Nimbus" comes from the Latin word for "rain.") Two examples are the nimbostratus or cumulonimbus clouds. Nimbostratus clouds bring continuous precipitation that can last for many hours. These low-level clouds are full of moisture. Cumulonimbus clouds are also called thunderheads . Thunderheads produce rain, thunder, and lightning . Many cumulonimbus clouds occur along cold fronts, where cool air is forced under warm air. They usually shrink as evening approaches, and moisture in the air evaporates . Cumulonimbus clouds gradually become stratocumulus clouds, which rarely produce rain. Clouds and Weather Certain types of clouds produce precipitation. Clouds also produce the bolt of electricity called lightning and the sound of thunder that accompanies it. Lightning is formed in a cloud when positively charged particles and negatively charged particles are separated, forming an electrical field . When the electrical field is strong enough, it discharges a superheated bolt of lightning to Earth. Most of what we consider to be single lightning strikes are in fact three or four separate strokes of lightning. The sound of thunder is actually the sonic shock wave that comes when the air, heated by the lightning bolt, expands very rapidly. Thunder sometimes sounds like it comes in waves because of the time it takes the sound to travel. Because the speed of light is faster than the speed of sound, lightning will always appear before its thunder is heard.

Meteorologists measure cloud cover , or the amount of the visible sky covered by clouds, in units called oktas . An okta estimates how many eighths of the sky (octo-) is covered in clouds. A clear sky is zero oktas, while a totally overcast or gray sky is eight oktas. Scientists have experimented with a process called cloud seeding for many years. Cloud seeding aims to influence weather patterns. Seeds, or microscopic particles, are placed in clouds. These seeds are artificial cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) , which are tiny particles of dust , salt , or pollution that collect in all clouds. Every raindrop and snowflake contains a CCN. Water or ice droplets accumulate around CCN. Scientists hope that cloud seeding will allow people to control precipitation. Extraterrestrial Clouds Clouds exist in outer space. Clouds on Jupiter , for instance, are divided into three bands in the planet ’s atmosphere. The highest band, at 50 kilometers (31 miles) above the surface of the planet, is mostly clear. Jupiter’s middle layer of clouds is constantly moving. These storm clouds appear as bands and swirls of yellow, brown, and red. Most of these clouds are made of droplets of ammonia and ammonia crystals, mixed with phosphorus and sulfur . (These ammonia storms would be toxic on Earth.) Beneath Jupiter’s thick layer of ammonia clouds lies what some astrophysicists believe is a thin layer of water clouds. Scientists think there may be water clouds because bursts of lightning have been spotted in Jupiter’s atmosphere. Interstellar clouds , which exist in the space between planets and stars , are not really clouds at all. Interstellar clouds are areas where gases and plasma are dense and, sometimes, visible. Astronomers determine what elements are present in interstellar clouds by analyzing the light, or radiation , that comes from them. Most interstellar clouds are made of hydrogen , helium , and oxygen . The dusty “milk” of the Milky Way is an interstellar cloud between the stars of our galaxy .

Airavata Ancient Hindus believed the white elephant Airavata used his trunk to reach into the underworld and withdraw water. Airavata then sprayed this water into the sky, creating clouds and making precipitation possible.

Contrails Contrails (short for condensation trails) are the linear clouds left behind a jet as it flies through the high atmosphere. These manufactured clouds result when the hot air expelled from the jets engine cools and condenses in the surrounding air.

Internet Cloud "Cloud" is sometimes used as a metaphor for the internet. The "cloud condensation nuclei" in the internet cloud are websites around which users gather and contribute.

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Dr. Universe: What do clouds do? - Desi, 9, Maryland

If you’re anything like me, you like to watch the clouds go by in the sky. Even though some clouds might look like they are just floating around up there, they can do quite a lot for our planet.

The first thing to know about clouds is they are made up of tiny water droplets, ice crystals, or a mix of both—and there are many different kinds of clouds.

There are white and puffy cumulus clouds, thin and wispy cirrus clouds, and tall nimbostratus clouds that stretch high up in to the sky. Believe it or not, when you walk through fog, you are walking through a kind of cloud that’s touching the ground.

Water on the move

I learned about clouds from my friend Von P. Walden , an atmospheric researcher at Washington State University.

The clouds above North America are usually moving from the west to the east, Walden said. A lot of the water that makes up clouds comes from the Pacific Ocean.

As the water on the surface of the ocean warms up, tiny water molecules rise into the atmosphere to help form clouds. When the water particles that make up clouds get heavy enough, they will sometimes fall down to earth in the form of rain or snow. When that water falls, we can use it for various things.

We might use it to water plants for food. We can also use water to generate energy from dams for our homes and schools. We sometimes drink it or swim in it. Clouds can also cool us by reflecting sunlight back to space.

Eyes to the skies

It had been raining the morning I went to visit Walden, but the sun was finally starting to shine. He noticed a small rainbow out the window.

We see rainbows when light moves through water droplets and the rays of light scatter around. It’s pretty rare, but sometimes we can spot a phenomenon called a rainbow cloud . These clouds occur very high in the atmosphere. Instead of being white or gray, the cloud is all the colors of the rainbow, or iridescent.

If you ever have a chance to visit the Palouse in Washington state, we have some great clouds. But really, you can watch clouds from anywhere on our planet.

Tracking the clouds

What clouds do you see in your neighborhood? Can you draw their shapes? While investigating your question, I also learned that nephelococcygia is the act of seeking and finding shapes in the clouds. You can keep track of your observations with a pen and paper. Do you notice any patterns about the clouds? How fast do they move? Keep your eye to the sky and share what you discover at [email protected] .

Sincerely, Dr. Universe

How far can a cloud travel?

We’ve all played the “what does that cloud look like” game. Maybe you saw a bunny… or an airplane… or a unicorn. What if that same cloud could also be seen by someone in a far off continent? That’s what a listener in Minnesota wondered. He wanted to know if the same cloud he saw in a park near his house could also be seen in Africa.

We talk to Deanna Hence, one of our favorite weather experts, and she tells us about how clouds travel. We also dust off the Zoom Ray to learn about what is inside of a cloud. And have you ever noticed the similarities between cloud types, like cumulonimbus, and magic spells from Harry Potter ? Well, we have, and we made a game out of it!

We also have a brand new Mystery Sound for your guessing pleasure and a Moment of Um that answers the question: Why do pugs have such scrunchy faces?

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How Do Clouds Move Around The World?

What are Clouds?

Clouds are large collections of water droplets that can be frozen, but only sometimes. They form due to condensation, when water evaporates into a gas and cools down above the Earth. Then, the water drops attach to pieces of dust or dirt that are above the Earth. As more droplets attach to one piece of debris, they form a water drop. Then, when the cloud gets heavy and full of water, it rains or snows!

How Do Clouds Move Around the World?

Clouds can travel up to hundreds miles! They usually travel because of upper-level winds and through the Jet Stream. The Jet Stream is a huge blanket of air in Earth’s atmosphere that moves clouds and storms around. Clouds can also move around due to hurricanes. Hurricanes can travel up to 3,000 miles! They can carry storm clouds from Africa, all the way to the United States! This is how clouds move around the world.

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Why do clouds float when they have tons of water in them?

Douglas Wesley, a senior meteorologist in the Cooperative Program for Operational Meteorology, Education and Training (COMET) at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, explains:

Clouds are composed primarily of small water droplets and, if it's cold enough, ice crystals. The vast majority of clouds you see contain droplets and/or crystals that are too small to have any appreciable fall velocity. So the particles continue to float with the surrounding air. For an analogy closer to the ground, think of tiny dust particles that, when viewed against a shaft of sunlight, appear to float in the air.

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Indeed, the distance from the center of a typical water droplet to its edge--its radius--ranges from a few microns (thousandths of a millimeter) to a few tens of microns (ice crystals are often a bit larger). And the speed with which any object falls is related to its mass and surface area--which is why a feather falls more slowly than a pebble of the same weight. For particles that are roughly spherical, mass is proportional to the radius cubed (r 3 ); the downward-facing surface area of such a particle is proportional to the radius squared (r 2 ). Thus, as a tiny water droplet grows, its mass becomes more important than its shape and the droplet falls faster. Even a large droplet having a radius of 100 microns has a fall velocity of only about 27 centimeters per second (cm/s). And because ice crystals have more irregular shapes, their fall velocities are relatively smaller.

Upward vertical motions, or updrafts, in the atmosphere also contribute to the floating appearance of clouds by offsetting the small fall velocities of their constituent particles. Clouds generally form, survive and grow in air that is moving upward. Rising air expands as the pressure on it decreases, and that expansion into thinner, high-altitude air causes cooling. Enough cooling eventually makes water vapor condense, which contributes to the survival and growth of the clouds. Stratiform clouds (those producing steady rain) typically form in an environment with widespread but weak upward motion (say, a few cm/s); convective clouds (those causing showers and thunderstorms) are associated with updrafts that exceed a few meters per second. In both cases, though, the atmospheric ascent is sufficient to negate the small fall velocities of cloud particles.

Another way to illustrate the relative lightness of clouds is to compare the total mass of a cloud to the mass of the air in which it resides. Consider a hypothetical but typical small cloud at an altitude of 10,000 feet, comprising one cubic kilometer and having a liquid water content of 1.0 gram per cubic meter. The total mass of the cloud particles is about 1 million kilograms, which is roughly equivalent to the weight of 500 automobiles. But the total mass of the air in that same cubic kilometer is about 1 billion kilograms--1,000 times heavier than the liquid!

So, even though typical clouds do contain a lot of water, this water is spread out for miles in the form of tiny water droplets or crystals, which are so small that the effect of gravity on them is negligible. Thus, from our vantage on the ground, clouds seem to float in the sky.

Answer originally posted May 31, 1999

Clouds and How They Form

As air rises it cools and decreases pressure, spreading out. Clouds form when the air cools below the dewpoint, and the air can not hold as much water vapor.

Clouds are made of water droplets or ice crystals that are so small and light they are able to stay up in the air. But how does the water and ice that makes up clouds get into the sky? And why do different types of clouds form?

Water Vapor Evaporates Into the Air

The water and ice that make up clouds travels into the sky within air as water vapor, the gas form of water. Water vapor gets into air mainly by evaporation – some of the liquid water from the ocean, lakes, and rivers turns into water vapor and travels in the air. When air rises in the atmosphere it gets cooler and is under less pressure. When air cools, some of the water vapor condenses. As air pressure drops, some water vapor condenses too. The vapor becomes small water droplets and a cloud is formed.

Water Vapor Condenses to Form a Cloud

It’s easier for water vapor to condense into water droplets when it has a particle to condense upon. These particles, such as dust and pollen, are called condensation nuclei. Eventually, enough water vapor condenses on pieces of dust, pollen, and other condensation nuclei to form a cloud.

Clouds Form in Different Ways

Some clouds form as air warms up near the Earth's surface and rises . Heated by sunshine, the ground heats the air just above it. That warmed air starts to rise because, when warm, it is lighter and less dense than the air around it. As it rises, its pressure and temperature drop causing water vapor to condense. Eventually, enough moisture will condense out of the air to form a cloud. Several types of clouds form in this way including cumulus, cumulonimbus, mammatus, and stratocumulus clouds.

Some clouds, such as lenticular and stratus clouds, form when wind blows into the side of a mountain range or other terrain and is forced upward, higher in the atmosphere. This process can also happen without a dramatic mountain range, just when air travels over land that slopes upward and is forced to rise. The air cools as it rises, and eventually clouds form. Other types of clouds, such as cumulus clouds, can also form above mountains too as air is warmed at the ground and rises.

Clouds also form when air is forced upward at areas of low pressure . Winds meet at the center of a low-pressure system and have nowhere to go but up. All types of clouds are formed by these processes, especially altocumulus, altostratus, cirrocumulus, stratocumulus, and stratus clouds.

Weather fronts, where two large masses of air collide at the Earth’s surface, also form clouds by causing air to rise.

• At a warm front, where a warm air mass slides over a cold air mass, the warm air is pushed upward forming many different types of clouds, from low stratus clouds to midlevel altocumulus and altostratus clouds, to high cirrus, cirrocumulus and cirrostratus clouds. Clouds that produce rain like nimbostratus and cumulonimbus are also common at warm fronts.
• At a cold front, where heavy a cold air mass pushes a warm air mass upward, cumulous clouds are common. They often grow into cumulonimbus clouds, which produce thunderstorms. Nimbostratus, stratocumulus, and stratus clouds can also form at a cold front.

© 2019 UCAR with portions adapted from Windows to the Universe (© 2009 NESTA)

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Why do the clouds move?

The clouds we see are in the Earth’s atmosphere.

13 September 2022

Image credit:  Wikipedia Commons

The atmosphere is the layer above ground that includes the sky and the clouds. The sky we see is full of gases that are mostly invisible to us. These gases make up the atmosphere, and can have different temperatures across the planet. When two areas of the sky are different temperatures, the air moves from the hotter area to the cooler area. This causes the wind! The warm air rushes in to heat up the cooler air, and this is why we get winds in our weather.  The wind can be so strong that it carries the clouds with them. Clouds are made up of water vapour, which may later fall to the ground as rain, hail or snow. The higher up you go in the sky, the faster the clouds move. This is because the wind is faster at higher heights above the surface. 

We sometimes get clouds that can travel huge distances, and cross the oceans. These clouds are following a particularly strong wind, called the jet stream. Jet streams travel from warm parts of the world to colder parts, bring warm air with them that can rise temperatures. This movement of air can sometimes bring warm weather to the UK, when the winds are travelling in the right direction. 

Find out more about clouds.  

Find out more about wind . 

Find out more about the jet stream. 

Answered by:

Catherine Regan

Atmospheric Science, Environmental Science

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On a still day, clouds move slowly across the sky. How much of this is due to Earth’s rotation? Do clouds seem to move faster at the equator?

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Clouds move in response to the local winds. Although the air immediately around you may be still, the winds are far stronger thousands of metres higher up. That is why clouds are usually in motion, even on apparently windless days. But part of a cloud’s motion is indeed governed by Earth’s rotation.

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Why You Experience Turbulence When Flying Through A Cloud

• By Boldmethod

You're flying toward a puffy cumulus cloud and out of habit, your natural instinct is to tighten your seatbelt. It may seem like a simple question, but have you ever wondered why clouds can be so bumpy?

Clouds Indicate Unstable Air

You can think of clouds as localized zones of saturated air, where the temperature of the air is at or below the dewpoint. Clouds will form whenever the amount of moisture in the air is such that the humidity reaches 100%. As a parcel of unsaturated air cools, its relative humidity increases. If sufficiently cooled, the relative humidity becomes 100% and the temperature equals the dew point.

Here's a fun way to think of it... Scientists have measured the water density of a typical fair-weather cumulus cloud as 1/2 gram per cubic meter. Let's say that cloud is 1 kilometer wide and 1 kilometer tall, which is pretty typical for some cumulus clouds. If you do the math, that's 1 billion cubic meters in volume for a weight of 1.1 million pounds (or roughly 100 elephants).

Why go through this random explanation? Simply put, the density of clouds is different than the surrounding air. That's one reason why you could experience turbulence when you fly through a cloud.

But another, and often more significant, reason turbulence occurs in clouds is due to the unstable mixing of air due to the temperature, pressure, and velocity changes within clouds compared to the outside air. The difference in these factors between an air parcel within vs. outside a cloud determines how much turbulence you'll experience. Clouds can give you a signpost in the sky marking the location of turbulence and hazardous weather conditions. They can mark frontal passages, mountain wave activity, thermals, temperature inversions, and more.

The Severity Of Turbulence Is Determined By The Size Of The Shear Area

There are plenty of reasons why turbulence forms , but the severity of windshear is arguably the most critical factor. As you climb to cruise altitude, you'll fly through layers of air with different densities, wind speeds, and temperatures. How the air mixes between layers determines if you'll feel turbulence or not. If the mixing is smooth and spread out over thousands of feet or even miles, you might not feel much turbulence at all and you may see the nose of the airplane gradually swing towards the direction of the prevailing wind. If the shear area decreases in size (or increases in velocity) over a confined area of a few dozen or a few hundred feet, there's a recipe for incrementally stronger turbulence. Short shear areas generally create "chop" and longer shear areas generally create turbulence.

You can think of the turbulence when entering a cloud deck the same way, as mild windshear.

Climbing Above A Temperature Inversion

Have you ever noticed that if you can outclimb a haze layer or fly just above the tops of scattered cumulus clouds that the ride is much more smooth? This is especially apparent in the summer and is sometimes caused by a temperature inversion, where a layer of warm air sits on top of cooler air below. Some people call this a "capping inversion" when you can physically see the "cap" of the haze layer around you.

Depending on the temperature and dew point spread between atmospheric layers, it's often perfectly clear above a temperature inversion. Clouds sitting at these boundaries are tell-tale signs that you're about to fly into a bumpy shear area.

Convection Within Clouds

There are strong updrafts and downdrafts embedded within cumulonimbus and cumulus clouds, as opposed to stratocumulus and nimbostratus clouds which have lighter wind currents. When clouds generate showery precipitation, light, moderate, or greater turbulence should be expected. Generally speaking, the stronger the radar echo, the stronger the downdraft.

The most dramatic example of this would be, of course, thunderstorms. Towering cumulus, cumulonimbus, and thunderstorms almost always equal strong convective turbulence both in and around the cloud.

But Why Are Some Clouds Are Totally Smooth?

You're flying towards what you think will be a turbulent cloud. It's a few thousand feet tall, white, and puffy, but when you fly through it you feel almost nothing. Why?

Clouds can occasionally form in stable air that's relatively free of disturbance. Turbulence almost always happens when differing air masses mix. But when there's a uniform air mass, mixing won't occur strongly enough to cause turbulence. If you can find extremely stable, saturated air, you'll find plenty of clouds without turbulence. Low lapse rates, constant temperatures, and low wind speeds are also great signs that clouds around you will have little to no turbulence.

What Do You Think?

What are some tips you've learned over time to find the best rides in the sky? Leave us a comment below.

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How Fast Do Clouds Move? [Answered + Interesting Facts]

Have you ever watched the clouds move when you’re going for a long car ride and been fascinated by how they change shape and seem to move with you? If yes, you might have also wondered about how fast the clouds move. 

There are some days when the clouds don’t seem to budge at all in the sky, but there are also days when they seem to move faster than ever! 

In this article, we’re going to take you through an explanation of clouds and their movement, from whether they move at all to how and why they move. We’ll take a look at factors that affect the cloud’s movement, how fast they move, and how far they travel. 

Without further ado, let’s get right to it. 

Do Clouds Really Move?  

Yes, clouds really move. They also travel long distances! Even though it can seem like the clouds are standing still while the earth moves, the clouds are actually moving because they are being carried by a pocket of wind. 

Even though clouds look like fluffy balls of cotton, they are actually made up of drops of water vapor. After condensation takes place in the earth’s atmosphere, the drops of water are collected as one and take on the cloud-like appearance we’re used to seeing from the earth. And when warm air rises and meets cooler temperatures, water vapor condenses into tiny droplets, forming the beautiful clouds we see in the sky.

While many believe that the earth’s rotation affects how the clouds move, it’s important to note that this belief is false. The earth’s rotation does not affect the movement of clouds because clouds are born in the earth’s atmosphere.

Since wind moves at all levels of the atmosphere, it is safe to say that clouds really move no matter how high or low they are in the sky they move in the wind direction. 

Why Do Clouds Move?

The earth’s atmosphere is made up of several gases, clouds, and the sky. When we look up at the sky, we can’t see all of the gases that make up the atmosphere. However, we do know that those gases exist at different temperatures in different areas all over the surface of the earth.

When one part of the sky is too hot, the air shifts to a cooler area, and as a result, wind is formed. The warmer air moves to a different place in the sky to make the area of colder air warmer, and everyone on earth feels the wind. When the wind shifts, the clouds move with it. 

How Do Clouds Move? 

There are times when the wind is in the process of moving from one area of the sky to another that it is extremely strong, and as a result, it takes the clouds with them. If a cloud is very high up in the sky, it moves more quickly because the wind moves faster when it is higher up in the sky. 

In other words, the wind carries a section of cloudy air with it when it moves. 

Things that Affect the Cloud’s Movement

Here is a list of factors that affect a cloud’s movement: 

The direction of the wind

It is crucial to remember that the wind’s direction affects the direction that the clouds move towards. There can be times when the clouds travel in the horizontal direction, while at other times, they move vertically because of the direction that the wind is blowing.

Solar radiation

Through the process of convection, solar radiation also helps the clouds with their movement. The heat from the sun causes air particles to get into warmer air, and as a result, the warm air helps the clouds to get moving.

Orographic lifting

Another factor that causes a cloud to move is orographic lifting. Orographic lifting simply refers to the process of air moving from a lower elevation to one that is much higher. This process is not voluntary but takes place because the air is forced to rise over a raised terrain. For example, if a huge mass of air makes contact with the side of a mountain, it is forced to move upwards. As a result, a cloud is created, and it is forced to move. 

Factories and industrial plants

Factories are another leading cause that contributes to the movement of clouds. Most factories have chimneys that let out large amounts of smoke and other gases. As a result, those gases often merge with the clouds in the sky, and as a result, the clouds travel in the same direction that the smoke billows and with same speed. 

How Fast Do Clouds Move? 

The speed at which a cloud moves depends on a variety of different factors, such as the type of cloud that is moving, the speed of the wind, and the direction that the wind is traveling in. However, the average cloud can move at a speed of anywhere between 30 to 120 miles per hour. 

To fully assess the speed at which a cloud is moving, one must also consider the weather and the type of cloud in the sky. 

How Far Do Clouds Travel?

The answer to this question depends on where in the atmosphere a cloud is located. This is because the wind blows at different speeds at different levels of the atmosphere. The lower the cloud is in the atmosphere, the lighter the wind, and therefore, the slower the cloud travels. On the other hand, the wind gets stronger higher up in the atmosphere, which means that the clouds travel faster. 

However, the average cloud can travel several hundred miles in a day, and it can travel anywhere from 50 to 100 miles every day. 

Conclusion 

In this article, we walked you through a ton of information on what causes a cloud to move, how far they travel, and what factors contribute to cloud movement. When we look up at the sky, we don’t often stop and think about the ways that clouds move or what contributes to their creation! Still, we hope that after reading this article, you will be inspired to go out there and continue to research and learn more about clouds, nature, and everything that it has to offer you.

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What causes turbulence, and what can you do if it happens to you?

Here’s the science behind this natural and often scary phenomenon—and how to cope with it during a flight.

Everyone has a story about hitting a rough patch of air, those hair-raising moments when suddenly more than the plane is flying. Bellies drop, drinks slop, and people caught in the aisle lurch against seats. In rare cases, it can even mean more than bumps or bruises.

In air travel, turbulence is a certainty and a major source of flight anxiety for flyers of all stripes. But understanding what causes turbulence, where it occurs, and the high-tech tools pilots use to make air travel safer and more comfortable may help settle even the most anxious flyer’s nerves.

What is turbulence?

The definition of turbulence is fairly straightforward: chaotic and capricious eddies of air , disturbed from a calmer state by various forces. If you’ve ever watched a placid thread of rising smoke break up into ever more disorganized swirls, you’ve witnessed turbulence.

Rough air happens everywhere, from ground level to far above cruising altitude. But the most common turbulence experienced by flyers has three common causes: mountains, jet streams, and storms.

Just as ocean waves break on a beach, air also forms waves as it encounters mountains. While some air passes smoothly over and onward, some air masses crowd against the mountains themselves, left with nowhere to go but up. These “mountain waves” can propagate as wide, gentle oscillations into the atmosphere, but they can also break up into many tumultuous currents, which we experience as turbulence.

Disorderly air associated with jet streams—the narrow, meandering bands of swift winds located near the poles—is caused by differences in wind velocities as an aircraft moves away from regions of maximum wind speeds. The decelerating winds create shear regions that are prone to turbulence.

And though it’s easy to understand turbulence created by thunderstorms, a relatively new discovery by researchers is that storms can generate bumpy conditions in faraway skies. The rapid growth of storm clouds pushes air away, generating waves in the atmosphere that can break up into turbulence hundreds to even thousands of miles away, says Robert Sharman, a turbulence researcher at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).

Each of these scenarios can cause “clear air turbulence,” or CAT, the least predictable or observable type of disturbance. CAT is often the culprit behind moderate to severe injuries, as it can occur so suddenly that flight crew don’t have time to instruct passengers to buckle up. According to the Federal Aviation Administration, 146 passengers and crew were reported seriously injured by turbulence between 2009 and 2021 .

Prediction improvements

Though weather forecasts and pilot reports are helpful for avoiding bumpy zones, they are relatively blunt tools, Sharman says. Weather models can’t predict turbulence at airplane-sized scales, and pilots frequently misreport turbulent locations by many dozens of miles. At NCAR, Sharman has been working since 2005 to build much more precise “nowcasting” turbulence tools .

Here’s how it works: an algorithm currently installed on around 1,000 commercial airliners analyzes information from onboard sensors to characterize each plane’s movement at any given moment. Using data on forward velocity, wind speed, air pressure, roll angle, and other factors, the algorithm generates a local atmospheric turbulence level, which is fed back into a national system every minute. Used in conjunction with national weather forecasts and models, the tool annotates forecasts with real-time conditions, which in turn helps to strengthen weather prediction models.

Over 12,000 Delta Airlines pilots currently use tablets loaded with the tool to check conditions along their flight paths. In addition to the domestic planes currently equipped with the algorithm, international carriers including Qantas, Air France and Lufthansa will also join in. And Boeing has begun to offer the algorithm as a purchase option for new aircraft, Sharman says.

“We better understand the atmosphere now, and our computing ability has meant we can provide better descriptions of turbulence,” Sharman says. “By its very nature, turbulence is so chaotic that you need a lot of computer power to throw at it before you can see what is actually happening. This observing strategy is a breakthrough for us.”

Related: airportraits show what it would look like if all the planes took off at once

Costs of turbulence

Part of the anxiety around turbulence is the fear of the aircraft failing. It’s a natural response, especially if you’ve had the experience of watching a wing bend to a seemingly impossible degree .

“I once had a person in front of me start screaming that we were all going to die because she saw the wingtip flexing,” recalls Marilyn Smith, an aeronautics engineer at Georgia Tech . “It’s good that the wing flexes; if it was so rigid that it didn’t, the plane would probably be so heavy that it couldn’t fly. Everything on a plane has been tested to within an inch of its life so that it won’t fail.”

In addition to physical tests in labs, where full-sized aircraft are subjected to stresses above and beyond what they’d encounter while airborne, Smith says that high-powered computing has made it possible to digitally model a wider range of hypothetical scenarios. Monitoring for maintenance issues has improved as well: onboard sensors keep track of components known to be vulnerable to fatigue, and flag that part for inspection or replacement.

Could airplane design be changed to eliminate the experience of turbulence altogether? Smith says likely not, at least in the near term. One area of research is looking at the possibility of instant reaction to sudden gusts by altering the airflow around the surface of the wing itself—though Smith warns that this is an extremely difficult problem to solve while keeping an airplane lightweight, low-cost and energy efficient.

Fassi Kafyeke, head of innovation at Bombardier , is looking to electrical propulsion technology as one way of altering the shape and feel of tomorrow’s airplanes. Without the need to confine smaller electric engines beneath the wing, they could be located almost anywhere on a plane’s body along with multiple smaller fans to propel the plane forward.

Though design changes like those would mainly address efficiency, turbulence does play a factor in aircraft performance and energy consumption: Flight path and altitude changes to avoid turbulence is estimated to cost U.S. airlines as much as $100 million a year, and burn an additional 160 million gallons of fuel per year.

Climate shifts could exacerbate those costs even more. Paul Williams, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Reading in the U.K., has estimated that by 2050 to 2080, changes to the jet stream from climate change will result in an increase of clear-air turbulence of 113 percent over North America , and as much as 181 percent over the North Atlantic. He’s currently working with Airbus to translate those projections into aircraft design parameters.

“The planes that manufacturers are designing today will still be flying in the 2050s, 60s, and 70s, and they’ll need to withstand the buffeting they’ll get,” Williams said. “It’s early stages yet, but they’re already looking at whether there will be the need for tweaks to their airframes to make them more robust.”

How to cope

Armed and ready though you may be with knowledge of meteorology and engineering, there are a few more solid strategies to plan for and cope with turbulence once on the plane.

Fly early in the day and sit as far forward in the plane as you’re able, says Heather Poole, a flight attendant for 21 years and author of the book Cruising Attitude .

“Turbulence is worse at the back of the plane,” she says. “There have been times when I’ve seen the folks in coach holding on like it’s a rodeo, and I’ve had to call the cockpit because they experience it differently up there.”

Stay buckled up, even when the seatbelt light is off, Poole adds, since even a loosely fastened belt will keep you from hitting your head on the overhead bins. And don’t try to hand babies across the aisle or give coffee back to cabin crew who are trying to secure loose objects.

She also suggests just mentioning to your flight crew if you have anxiety—they’ll go out of their way to check on you if things get bumpy. Apps like My Radar and Soar also can also demystify what’s in the sky ahead.

“That’s what the fear is about, mostly, the lack of a sense of control,” Poole says. “If you learn more about the weather, and what it is, and where turbulence might be, then you have a better sense of how it happens and that you’ll be okay.”

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