Ask My Sky Mom. Aviation wit and wisdom.

Hey Mom,

I am not pilot, I am aviation enthusiast. Is a silly question what are clouds made of?

Thank you,

Cloudy on the Concept

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Hiya My Hazy Pal,

Whether the weather in question is fluffy poofs, ethereally wispy threads, a low hanging sheet of gray, or threatening thunderstorms, what you’re seeing is water. Or ice. That’s pretty much it. There is nearly always some degree of water vapor in the air, water vapor being the invisible, gaseous form of liquid water that we get when water evaporates. The warmer the air, the more water vapor it can hold. When air becomes cooler, there’s less room for water vapor between those air molecules. As the air becomes colder yet, it reaches a point where there isn’t even room for the water vapor that is currently present and it gets squeezed right out of the atmosphere. That is, it condenses: it becomes visible, liquid water. The temperature at which this happens is known as the dew point. Those water droplets are known as clouds, or if they’re less dense, mist. Should we find them lingering densely near the surface, we call them fog. If the temperature happens to be below freezing, those water droplets freeze into ice crystals. At least, most of the time they do. The surface tension of a drop of water will cause it to resist freezing in some cases until the temperature is well below freezing, giving us supercooled water droplets and a great reason to be wary of flying in the clouds without anti icing or deicing equipment…but I digress.

Whatever the variety of cloud, the basic ingredient is precisely the same. The shape those clouds take depends upon many, many factors, which is a separate question that shall be answered another time, should anyone care to ask it. In the mean time,

Keep one wing in the sunshine,

Mom

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You’ve got questions? I’ll find you an answer. Email your aviation related question to mom@myskymom.com and check out myskymom.com to read the answers to questions previously posted. An educated pilot is a safe pilot is a happy pilot!  Read on, fly safe, and remember: the only stupid question is the one you didn’t ask!

~ by myskymom on November 29, 2009.