When do clouds “decide” to rain off and why woudl they stop and continue somewhere else later?

Question

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

Answer 1

Clouds are just masses of water vapour. If the temperature, humidity and air pressure conditions are right where that vapour is, then that water is going to condensate into rain (or other kinds of precipitate we all know and love.. snow, hail, sleet, ice crystals, etc.) and fall on you.