All About Weather
A book about clouds and what they can tell us about our weather.
Have you ever sat and looked at the clouds? Maybe seen fun shapes or animals in the clouds? The clouds appear so light and fluffy, but are they? What are clouds made of? Why do the exist? These are all questions that I wondered about! I want to share with you what I know about clouds.
The most shocking thing I found out about clouds is that they are not light and fluffy. The average cloud weighs 1.1 million pounds. That means that on alomst any given day, there is a cloud floating in the air above you that weighs over a million pounds!
So let's start at the beginning. Some days there are no clouds, other days there can be a lot of clouds. This depends on how much water vapor is in the air. Clouds are made up of millions of tiny droplets of water. As water that is on the ground heats up, it evaporates, or turns into invisible vapor that rises until it reaches colder air and condenses, or comes together, to form clouds. When the clouds get too big and heavy, it rains, sending the water back to earth.
There are also different kinds of clouds. Each kind tells us something different about the weather. Cumulus clouds are the ones that looks like big heaps of cotton balls. The word cumulus actually means heap. Cumulus clouds usually do not mean we will be getting rain or percipitation any time soon. Cumulus clouds are normally just the beginning of other types of clouds.
There are also cirrus clouds. Cirrus clouds look like whisps of hair. Can you guess what cirrus means in Latin? You guessed it! Cirrus means hair. Cirrus clouds are the highest clouds in the sky and they generally tell us that a warm front is about a day away.
Stratus clouds look like layers of blankets. Stratus means layer in Latin. Stratus clouds are lower clouds that are uniformly gray in color. They sometimes look like a layer of fog that hasn't yet reach the ground.When we see status clouds, we know that we will most likely not see any rain.
So let's review. There are three main types of clouds; cumulus, stratus, and cirrus. Think about what you know about each type of cloud. Come up with one fact that you remember about each cloud type. After you have your "I remember" statement, write in the student response section. Then go back in the text and check yourself. Edit your response if needed.