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

Clouds aren’t actually “things” in the sky that like move and float around, what you are seeing is more like pockets of the atmosphere that have certain conditions. The air holds water, and when conditions change such that it can’t hold that much water you see clouds.

When you see they are flat on the bottom what you are actually seeing is the boundary layer of 2 layers of the atmosphere. One cold, one hot – one low pressure, one high pressure etc…

If you watch a time-lapse you can almost see that they are pockets of atmosphere coalescing moving like waves more than discreet objects.