Everything You Want to Know About Clouds

How do clouds get made? Neil deGrasse Tyson and Chuck Nice break down the different types of clouds and how they form. Finally, it's time to get our heads in the clouds…

What is the difference between a cumulus cloud and a cumulonimbus cloud? We explore the interplay between air temperature and water vapor in cloud formation. Why does it rain? How does hail get made? Learn about hurricanes, cirrus clouds, orographic clouds, and cloud streets.

Timestamps:
00:00 - Introduction: Clouds
00:25 - Why Are Clouds Up There
2:30 - Cumulous Clouds & Rainstorms
4:12 - Why it Hails
5:29 - Cirrus Clouds
6:23 - Cloud Streets
7:58 - Hurricanes
9:03 - Orographic Clouds
9:53 - Noctilucent Clouds

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Science meets pop culture on StarTalk! Astrophysicist & Hayden Planetarium director Neil deGrasse Tyson, his comic co-hosts, guest celebrities & scientists discuss astronomy, physics, and everything else about life in the universe. Keep Looking Up!

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[Innocuus]

Chuck Nice is such a hero for playing the listening ear in all of these discussions. He obviously knows more than he lets on but he plays "the audience" in a gracious and effective way.

[DustinDawind]

This kind of thing is my jam. I'm a glider pilot. And everything in this video are things we glider pilots constantly think about. A big puffy cumulus cloud signifies the top of a a rising air mass called a thermal. So if we circle beneath the cloud we can ride the rising air mass up to the cloud base. "If you watch it for five minutes...no one does this." Glider pilots do. We spend a lot of time (both when we are on the ground and in the air) trying to see where a cloud is starting to form or alternatively if a cloud is already there is it stable or is it starting to dissipate. We are trying to determine If I aim for that spot over there will there be a thermal beneath it by the time I get there? We also love cloud streets. If we get a day with nice streeting we can just hang out under a street and fly along without stopping to circle. Lenticular clouds (or lennies as we call them) also signify an area of strong lift that we can ride. A cirrus layer is typically a bad sign for us. That will normally reflect the sun preventing the sun from being able to heat the ground and the thermals will shut down. Or if the cumulus clouds start to overdevelop and start to form a sheet and the sky becomes overcast (known as a stratus layer) that will also shut down the thermals. If we are up and a cirrus layer or stratus layer starts forming we know we need to be looking for an airport so we don't end up landing in a farmer's field somewhere.

[AdamDylanMajor]

I love how you bring up subjects I'd never care about on my own, and still get me hooked! Thank you, Neil

[GameSack]

You guys have a great infographics person.

[lord_of_crabs]

i never thought clouds could be cool and yet here we are

[SchopenhauerVsCamus]

1. Good ol’ Fog: Simple, grounded and down to Earth

2. Those other Clouds: All high up in the sky, highfalutin, rainin’ on our parade

[cartmanbruh]

We all wish we had teachers like him in schools!

[georgev]

As a pilot (often doing bush piloting with no weather stations around), clouds are a thesaurus for decoding weather. A large portion of my time goes into reading them and getting familiar with local weather watching clouds. Cool video.

[kennygreening]

There is a whole sub field of meteorology called Cloud Physics that studies the dynamics and microphysics of different types of clouds and precipitation. I’m a meteorologist and appreciates this video.

[JubeiKibagamiFez]

So, my very first plane ride, back in 2000, I was flying from NY to FL. I had a window seat and I saw the most beautiful cloud pillars on the top side of the clouds in what looked like an ocean of clouds, once we reached cruising altitude. The whole flight all I did was look at the clouds because I had never been in a flight before.

[BenjySparky]

Neil and Chuck, y'all rock! Peace

[kennygreening]

I’m probably just being nit-picky but on the weather map you had both the high pressure and low pressure system spinning clockwise. I’m the northern hemisphere, high pressure systems (anticyclones) spin clockwise and low pressure systems (cyclones) spin counterclockwise due to Earth’s rotation via the Coriolis effect. They both spin opposite directions in the southern hemisphere.

[rjstegbauer]

This is one of your best "explainers"!!! I have always had questions about clouds and you explained them simply and clearly! I've always wondered why clouds seem to have an "edge". Great video!

[jerrydeanswanson]

Thanks guys. Always a good education in a way that makes you smile. Happy 4th from Wisconsin.

[MagnusPaul]

Imagine hailstones bigger than a cricket ball coming down. I experienced this the first time in 1990, where the region I live in here in South Africa, is prone to freak tornadoes every couple of decades. Then, there was one day, where it hailed for most of the day, the size of marbles. 😊

[xpndblhero]

I live in the South Central region of the Appalachian Mountains of PA and I see some of the coolest clouds because of where I am, it's so cool and it's unlike anywhere else that I've been.... The noctilucent clouds are plentiful as is the "Cotton Candy" skies, as I've come to call it because it gets a hot pink color and a baby blue color at a specific time before sunset. It's just beautiful and I wish everyone could see it at least once in their lifetime.... It's like going to a far away beach and watching the sunset except it's through the mountains and you don't really see the sun, just its crazy effects shining through the mountains and valleys. It's probably my favorite sky screensaver and I could watch it for days and never get sick of 🌤️❤😁👍

[wakamiwailer]

I used to live in the mountains and I’d see lenticulars fairly often. The coolest though is when they get blown off the top of the mountain and just float on by. Sometimes you’d see a few all in a row.

[chrissittlington]

Nobody knows clouds like I do....as a meteorologist from the cloudiest place on earth...Ireland.
I loved this topic, not because it was new information to me, but because you and chuck always bring good fun to uncommon knowledge and make it interesting.
I will say however, some information was a little off. Both cold fronts AND warm fronts produce rain, it is mainly called so because of the air that is replacing/pushing into the other. For example, as warm air pushes into colder air the warm air rises over the top of it, causing clouds/rain. Vice versa, as cold air pushes into/replaces warm air it forces the warmer air upwards. The greater the difference in temperature between the two airmasses usually the more vigorous the front becomes. Also, that infographic of a High Pressure system going clockwise on the West Coast of the tut....should be anti-cyclonic. :P

Good fun all the same though. Always enjoy the shows. :)

[writingwizard]

I'm always captivated by clouds, which is why I clicked on this video. It was absolutely worth spending 11 minutes and 14 seconds of my day watching it.

[c.youngberg]

Chuck's reaction when he thought he was learning an all new science word was great! Such genuine excitement thinking something new was discovered and named. Lol.