I was wondering what exactly triggers clouds to rain and how heavy the rain is. I live in a mountain region, so i heart the terms of clouds being too heavy and low, so they get stuck and rain off. But that doesn’t feel to be entirely true and more of a folks tale.
So how does it happen?
In: Physics
To add some more information: Clouds getting ‘stuck’ in a valley and raining off is actually a thing. Clouds will rise along the slopes of the mountains if the wind is blowing into the right direction. This will lead to cooling, more condensed water, larger cloud droplets and ultimately rain (or other precipitation).
This is called orographic lifting and is quite important in mountainous regions. You might have heard of the Foehn effect, where really warm wind is coming from the mountains. This effect is a result of clouds raining off at mountain slopes.
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