What is the difference between cirrus and stratus clouds?

What is the difference between cirrus and stratus clouds?

Stratus clouds look like flat sheets of clouds. These clouds can mean an overcast day or steady rain. They may stay in one place for several days. Cirrus clouds are high feathery clouds.

What are the difference between cumulus and stratus clouds?

Two main classifications of clouds are cumulus and stratus. Cumulus clouds result from air rising due to positive buoyancy (i.e. metaphor: bubbles rising in a pot of water). Stratus clouds results from a forced lifting of air (low level convergence, upper level divergence). Stratus on the ground is fog.

What are the main characteristics of cirrus cumulus and stratus clouds?

The main characteristics of cirrus, cumulus, and stratus clouds are:

• Cirrus clouds are wispy clouds. They are located so high in the sky that they are formed by ice crystals.
• Cumulus clouds are the clouds that look like cotton balls in the sky. They are very fluffy.
• Stratus clouds are like flat sheets of paper.

What are cirrus stratus and cumulus clouds?

Clouds form in three basic patterns: Cirrus, from cirro, meaning curly or fibrous. Stratus, from strato, suggesting sheets or layers. Cumulus, from cumulo, indicating heaped or piled.

What do cirrus clouds mean?

Cirrus clouds are usually white and predict fair to pleasant weather. By watching the movement of cirrus clouds you can tell from which direction weather is approaching. When you see cirrus clouds, it usually indicates that a change in the weather will occur within 24 hours. The clouds usually cover the entire sky.

What are cumulus clouds made of?

Cumulus clouds can be composed of ice crystals, water droplets, supercooled water droplets, or a mixture of them. The water droplets form when water vapor condenses on the nuclei, and they may then coalesce into larger and larger droplets.

What is a cirrus cloud made of?

Cirrus is made up completely of ice crystals, which provides their white colour and form in a wide range of shapes and sizes. Cirrus clouds can also form through contrails, the vapour trails left by planes as they fly through a dry upper troposphere.

Which description refers to cirrus clouds?

Cirrus clouds are made of ice crystals and look like long, thin, wispy white streamers high in the sky. They are commonly known as “mare’s tails” because they are shaped like the tail of a horse. Cirrus clouds are often seen during fair weather.

What do cirrus clouds indicate about the weather?

Cirrus clouds – thin, wispy clouds strewn across the sky in high winds. A few cirrus clouds may indicate fair weather, but increasing cover indicates a change of weather (an approaching warm front) will occur within 24 hours. These are the most abundant of all high-level clouds.

Are snow clouds and rain clouds the same?

These clouds are predictors for rain but don’t produce rain or snow themselves; instead, they thicken to form nimbostratus rain or snow clouds.

What do cirrus and cumulus clouds have in common?

Cirrus clouds are the most common of the high clouds. They are composed of ice and are thin, wispy clouds blown in high winds into long streamers. Cirrus clouds are usually white and predict fair to pleasant weather….

Clouds with Vertical Growth	Cumulus Cumulonimbus
Special Clouds	Mammatus Lenticular Fog Contrails