I’ve been looking out my apartment windows for the past few days and it seems like clouds have been forming at the “same” height everyday ? Is there a specific range that water can condense into clouds and then why is it like that?
In: Planetary Science
They don’t. Take a flight, and you’ll learn that there are multiples layers of clouds and air most of the time, with thousands of feet in between.
Cloud formation is simply a matter of moisture levels and temperature. When you wake up in the morning and encounter fog, you’re hitting clouds that just happened to have the right conditions to form at ground level.
As you go up you’ll encounter different temperature zones that might help encourage or discourage cloud formations, and you might hit pockets of very active air that stirs things up too much to let clouds form, but you’re definitely not seeing the same formations at the exact same heights daily.
They don’t always form at the same height, but when it comes distances like that, with cloud base typically being a few thousand feet above ground level, the human eye isn’t very good at judging distance. You might get some idea if you know the size of the object you’re looking at, but clouds vary in size.
Clouds do vary in height; in fact one of the criteria used to classify clouds is how high they are. See [this summary](https://cloudatlas.wmo.int/en/useful-concepts.html) from the International Cloud Atlas.
Clouds often form as a result of air being lifted, which causes it to cool. If it cools enough, moisture in that air can condense. The rate at which air cools as it rises, called the adiabatic lapse rate, is fairly consistent for unsaturated air. But even then, the level at which you reach the dew point, the temperature at which the moisture would start to condense, depends on the starting temperature and moisture content of the air.
They don’t.
Have you ever seen fog? Fog is just a stratus cloud forming at ground level. And overcast sky is just a stratus cloud forming very high above the ground.
Cumulus clouds have a flat bottom because the conditions necessary to form the cloud stop existing below a certain height.
Cumulobimbus clouds have a flat bottom and top for the same reason
Cirrus clouds have to form very high up in the air because they are made of ice crystals they need very cold air to form.
If you’ve ever been on a plane on a cloudy day, you’ll notice clouds both above and below you.
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