The types of clouds: everything you need to

know
Not all clouds are created equal. Some are puffy and sweet, others are gray and uniform while
others still are so erratic and capricious that the human mind starts to see things; bunnies, cows
or a nation’s borders.

The different types of clouds are named based on their shape and how high up they hover in the
troposphere. For instance, the diagram below provides a quick overview of the most common
types of clouds based on altitude.

The three main types of clouds

A cloud is a visible accumulation of minute droplets of wate, ice crystals, or both, suspended in
the air. Though they vary in shape and size, all clouds are basically formed in the same way
through the vertical of air above the condensation level. Clouds may also form in contact with
the ground surface, too. Such a cloud would be known as fog, ice fog, or mist.

The types of clouds can be divided into three levels, each in turn with its own main groups of
clouds. All in all, there are ten fundamental types of clouds. Often, you’ll some places simply
class clouds as cirrus, stratus, and cumulus because these clouds are the most common and
representative for each altitude class.

 High-level clouds (5-13 km): cirrocumulus, cirrus, and cirrostratus.

 Mid-level clouds (2-7 km): altocumulus, altostratus, and nimbostratus.
 Low-level clouds (0-2 km): stratus, cumulus, cumulonimbus, and stratocumulus.
High-level clouds

Cirrus

Cirrus is one of the most common types of clouds that can be seen at any time of
the year. They’re thin and wispy with a silky sheen appearance.

This type of cloud is always made of ice crystals whose degree of separation
determines how transparent the cirrus is. Besides the filament appearance, cirrus
clouds stand out among other types of cloud because they’re often colored in bright
yellow or red before sunrise and after sunset, respectively. Cirrus clouds lit up long
before other clouds and fade out much later.

Cirrocumulus

Cirrocumulus clouds are among the most gorgeous out there. These usually form at
about 5 km above the surface with small white fluff patterns that spread out for
miles and miles over the sky. They’re sometimes called ‘mackerel skies’ because
they can sometimes have a grayish color which makes the clouds look a bit like
fish scales.

Cirrocumulus clouds exhibit features from both cumulus and cirrus clouds but
should not be confused with altocumulus clouds. While the two can look similar,
cirrocumulus does not have shading and some parts of altocumulus are darker than
the rest. Cirrocumulus cloud comes after cirrus cloud during warm frontal system.

What’s worth keeping in mind about cirrocumulus clouds is that they never
generate rainfall (but can mean cold weather) nor do they interact with other types
of clouds to form larger cloud structures.

Cirrostratus

Cirrostratus clouds have a sheet-like appearance that can look like a curly blanket
covering the sky. They’re quite translucent which makes it easy for the sun or the
moon to peer through. Their color varies from light gray to white and the fibrous
bands can vary widely in thickness. Purely white cirrostratus clouds signify these
have stored misture, indicating the presence of a warm frontal system.

Some of the best cloud pictures involve cirrostratus clouds because the ice crystals
beautifully refract light from the sun or moon producing a dazzling halo effect.
Cirrostratus clouds can turn into altostratus clouds if these descend to a lower
altitude.

As a nice piece of trivia, cirrostratus clouds almost always move in a westerly

direction. The sight of them usually means rainfall is imminent in the next 24
hours.
Mid-level clouds
Altocumulus
Altocumulus clouds form at a lower altitude so they’re largely made of water droplets though they may
retain ice crystals when forming higher up. They usually appear between lower stratus clouds and
higher cirrus clouds, and normally precede altostratus when a warm frontal system is advancing. When
altocumulus appears with another cloud type at the same time, storm normally follows. Altocumulus
clouds are common in most parts of the world.
Altocumulus clouds are quite common in most parts of the globe. They usually grow by convection, in
most cases after damp air rises to mix with descending dry air. Altocumulus clouds may also form in
combination with other types of clouds like cumulonimbus. The amount of rainfall from altocumulus is
projected from light to moderate.

Altostratus

Altostratus often spread over thousands of square miles and are strongly linked to
light rain or snow. Though they’re not capable of yielding heavy rain it’s common
for altostratus clouds to morph into nimbostratus clouds which are packed with
moisture and can deliver a pounding.

They’re uniformly gray, smooth, and mostly featureless which is why they’re
sometimes called ‘boring clouds’. You’ll commonly see this types of clouds in an
advancing warm frontal system, preceding nimbostratus clouds.

Nimbostratus

The name Nimbostratus comes from the Latin words nimbus which means “rain”
and stratus for “spread out”. These gloomy clouds are the heavy rain bearers out
there forming thick and dark layers of clouds that can completely block out the
sun. Though they belong to the middle-level category, they may sometimes
descend to lower altitudes.

Nimbostratus clouds form as a result of the gradual accumulation of moist area

over a large area as the warm frontal system lifts the warm and moist area higher
up in the atmosphere where it condenses. As outlined earlier, a nimbostratus cloud
can form from other types of clouds, like a descending altostratus. Spreading
cumulonimbus clouds may also lead to the formation of nimbostratus.

Low-level clouds
Stratus

Stratus clouds are composed of thin layers of clouds covering a large area of the
sky. This is simply mist or fog when it forms close to the ground. You can easily
distinguish a stratus cloud by the long horizontal layers of cloud which have a fog-
like appearance.
The clouds form from large air masses that rise to the atmosphere and later
condense. These are pretty benign in terms of rainfall producing light showers or
even light snow if the temperatures fall below freezing. However, if enough
moisture is retained at the ground level, the cloud can transform into a
nimbostratus. Stratus clouds are very common all over the world most especially in
the coastal and mountainous regions.

Cumulus

It’s the most recognizable out of all the types of clouds.These adorable ‘piles of
cotton’ form a large mass with a well-defined rounded edge, which explains the
name ‘cumulus’ which is Latin for ‘heap’. Cumulus clouds

Cumulus clouds are a sign of fair weather, though they may discharge rains
sometimes in form of a light shower. You can find them virtually everywhere in
the world expected for the Polar regions.

Cumulonimbus

Cumulonimbus is fluffy and white like cumulus but the cloud formations are far
larger. It’s a vertical developing type of cloud whose base grows from one to up to
eight kilometers, hence it’s commonly called a tower cloud. For the same reason,
cumulonimbus is both a low-level and high-level type of cloud. At the low-altitude
base, the cloud is mostly made of water droplets but the high-altitude summit is
dominated by ice crystals.

The rain comes and goes with this cloud but when it does, it can come pouring.
When you see a cumulonimbus, you know there’s a thunderstorm waiting to
happen somewhere.

Cumulonimbus clouds can be seen most commonly during the afternoons of

summer and spring months when the Earth’s surface releases heat.

Stratocumulus
Stratocumulus looks like a thick white blanket of stretched out cotton. They resemble cumulus
clouds except they’re far bigger. The base is well-defined and flat but the upper part of the
cloud is ragged due to convection with the cloud itself. Depending on the thickness of the
cloud, a stratocumulus will have light to dark gray hues.
Different Kinds of Weather Conditions
Weather comes in many different varieties, from frozen precipitation to thunderstorms.
Depending on where you live in the United States, you may have the chance to experience many
different and extreme weather conditions over the course of a calendar year.

Rain

Rain is able to form when air that is full of water vapor becomes so saturated that the water
droplets within clouds careen together to form larger and heavier droplets that eventually cannot
defy gravity any longer and fall to the ground. Warm air tends to hold more water vapor than
cold air and rain can happen when warm air rises and the water vapor within it becomes cooled
and forms droplets. Rain can fall as rapidly as 18 miles an hour and the drops may be as large as
a quarter inch in diameter. Heavy rains are capable of causing floods and flashfloods,
overflowing river banks and narrow canyons.

Snow

In the winter, snow may form as water vapor changes to ice high up within the clouds in the
atmosphere. This occurs when the temperature is below 32 degrees F. Snow falls as 6-sided
snowflakes composed of ice crystals that develop around minute particles of dust and dirt carried
into the air by the wind; once they grow large enough, gravity brings them down to the ground.
A storm in which there is high wind, heavy snow and below-freezing temperatures is called a
blizzard.

Frozen Precipitation

Two other types of winter weather conditions are sleet and freezing rain. Sleet occurs when
raindrops freeze solid into pellets of ice that fall to the Earth, bouncing as they make contact with
the ground. Freezing rain is a much more serious weather condition as it can bring down tree
branches and power lines and turn roads into slick icy surfaces. Freezing rain falls as regular rain
but when it falls onto a surface where the temperatures are below freezing, it causes the liquid
rain to become ice wherever it lands.

Hurricanes

A hurricane can be as large as 600 miles in diameter and contain winds that have been known to
reach 200 miles per hour. Hurricanes form over tropical waters north and south of the equator
when warm air is rapidly forced up from the surface and then spun by the Earth's rotation. As a
hurricane gains strength, it will move along over the sea, sometimes as fast as 20 miles an hour.
Hurricanes that make landfall can cause destruction because of their heavy winds and the rain
associated with the storm. There is also an accompanying surge of water as the hurricane pushes
onto land.
Tornadoes

The most violent of weather conditions is the tornado, which is a powerful rotating air column
that reaches down from a thunderstorm. The incredible winds in a tornado have been proven as
strong as 300 miles an hour. The tornado brings destruction as it touches down and moves along
the ground. This swath of destruction can be as wide as 1 mile and extends for long distances.
Tornadoes are created during a thunderstorm when the atmospheric conditions are just right,
creating a spinning column of air.

Thunderstorms
A thunderstorm forms when unstable air rises rapidly when it meets cooler air, high mountain peaks or
breezes from the ocean. Clouds can become electrically charged as collisions between ice particles
within them occur and discharge electricity to the ground in the form of lightning. Thunder follows
lightning as the lightning bolt creates a void in the air that is filled so quickly by more air rushing in that it
results in a loud wave of sound.
The Ati-Atihan Festival is a feast held annually in January in honor of the Santo Niño (Infant
Jesus), concluding on the third Sunday, in the town of Kalibo, Aklan in the island of Panay,
Philippines. The name Ati-Atihan means "to be like Atis" or "to make believe Atis", the local
name for the Aeta aborigines who first settled in Panay Island and other parts of the archipelago.

The festival consists of tribal dance, music, accompanied by indigenous costumes and weapons,
and parade along the street. Christians and non-Christians observe this day with religious
processions. It has inspired many other Philippine Festivals including the Sinulog Festival of
Cebu and Dinagyang of Iloilo City, both adaptations of the Kalibo's Ati-Atihan Festival, and
legally holds the title "The Mother of All Philippine Festivals" in spite of the other two festivals'
claims of the same title.

The Sinulog-Santo Niño Festival is an annual cultural and religious festival held on the third
Sunday of January in Cebu City, and is the centre of the Santo Niño Catholic celebrations in the
Philippines.

The festival is considered to be first of most popular festivals in the Philippines, with every
celebration of the festival routinely attracting around 1 to 2 million people from all over the
Philippines every year.[1] Aside from the religious aspect of the festival, Sinulog is also famous
for its street parties, usually happening the night before and the night of the main festival.

The Sublian Festival was started by the city Mayor Eduardo Dimacuha on July 23, 1988 on the
annual observation of the city hood of Batangas City. The objective is to renew the practice of
the subli.

So, what is a subli?

A subli is presented during a feast, as ceremonial worship dance in honor to the Holy Cross. The
image of the Holy Cross was found during the Spanish rule in the town of Alitagtag. It is the
patron saint of ancient town of Bauan. The dance is indigenous to the province of Batangas.

The subli is made up of lengthy prayers, songs and dances in predetermined arrangement. The
dancers are made up of one, two or eight couples. The male dancers shuffle in intense fashion
and hit the ground using a bamboo stick, while the female, dance with a sophisticated wrist and
finger movement.