eli5: How do (presumably very heavy) clouds stay suspended in the sky? More specifically how are they floating AND flat on the bottom?

Question

And what causes them to suddenly drop all of that water in the form of rain.

Judging by the amount of rain they must weigh a ton.

In: 337

Answer 1

I’ll let everybody else fight on the weight part, but I can handle the flat bottom part.

Water condenses out of the air due to temperature – at some altitude, the water vapor in the air becomes a cloud. Since air is usually layered by temperature, all the water at that altitude will convert from vapor to liquid at the same layer. That’s not always perfectly the case, of course, but a general rule.