When you fall into the habit of the daily routine, you lose the ability to turn to see the small details that fill us with life and not only in the poetic sense. If you think about it a bit, the planet works 24/7 tirelessly to keep its hosts alive, and part of that work takes place within the water cycle. The clouds are part of that intricate everlasting cycle that provides us with water to survive. One could look at the sky and see cotton shapes that seem to constantly change shape, but the reality is that clouds are made of water vapor. So If you’ve ever wondered how much a cloud weighs, their apparent lightness fades away.we are talking about really big weights.
How much does a cloud weigh?
Consider a cumulus cloud, which is the most fluffy cloud with jagged edges. These extend for at least 1 kilometer long, but since they usually have a cubic shape, then we could say that they are also 1 kilometer high. With these measurements it is possible to calculate the volume of the cluster amounting to about a billion cubic meters. And transferring that thought to water vapor, meteorologists calculate that it houses at least a thousand tons of water floating. Then they don’t seem so light anymore.
But when it comes to clouds, not all are the same, there are from the smallest to those capable of causing a big storm. Such is the case of cumulonimbus clouds, the thickest clouds that on a stormy night can discharge up to 4 thousand tons of water per second on the earth’s surface. In this case, the weight becomes exponentially higher, some reach up to billion tons of weight.
Of course the calculation is variable and depends on the dimensions of the clouds, so the weight of these varies greatly. However, these observations help us to get an idea of how much a cloud weighs and discover that they are not as light as they appear.
It might interest you