How do clouds hold so much water but then, as if someone opened a valve, it just starts falling out? Why doesn’t it constantly just trickle out?
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You are working from an incorrect assumption that this is the case. Clouds are constantly forming and “unforming” as the water evaporates and condenses. Within and under any given cloud, there will be pretty much constant formation of water droplets and falling of rain.
The reason that you think that a tap is just turned on and it starts raining, is because you only notice it when it falls on you. Your position is only an extremely small area underneath any given cloud – so where you are, it is either raining or not. Whereas underneath the entire surface area of the cloud, it is much more likely to be raining at some given point.
There are also some independent variables that you haven’t taken into account , like atmospheric temperature, pressure, wind, height of the cloud, etc. For example, a cloud could be “raining” but very high up. By the time the rain reaches ground level it may have evaporated again so you don’t feel it.
Tl;dr it’s a lot more complicated than you seem to think
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