Ask an Explainer

Q:

How do clouds float?

A:

Clouds may look huge and fluffy, but they're actually made up of really tiny droplets of water. So small, in fact, that drag keeps them up in the air. But it's not just drag that keeps them up, it's also buoyancy. Small water droplets are lifted in the air by warm updrafts. Then, as they get higher, they cool and clump togther to form droplets large enough for us to see. This is called condensation. In a cloud, the clumps are large enough to see, but the droplets are not large enough to fall. When they clump together and get too large, that's when we get rain. 

Ask an Explainer
Categories: