What do clouds feel like?

Do you ever stare into the sky and wonder just what those fluffy clouds feel like? Perhaps you are picturing a cotton candy like feeling, being able to tear tufts of the fluff away.

First of all, it is important to remember what clouds are. They are predominantly air but contain water droplets and ice crystals. Different types of clouds will have their own characteristics but let's look at cumulus clouds, these being the big, fluffy ones we see in summer.

Cumulus clouds are big, perhaps bigger than you think. Next time you see a solitary cumulus cloud look for its shadow on the ground to see how much area is covered in shade.

Researchers have determined that cumulus clouds contain around half a gram of water per cubic metre. Using the measurements of an average cloud, their studies concluded these clouds weigh around 500 tonnes, that's 75 times as heavy as an elephant!

This sounds crazy and hard to believe, after all wouldn’t we be seeing clouds thundering down to Earth at that weight?

There are a few reasons why that doesn’t happen.

Firstly, water droplets are so small they are barely impacted by gravity. Since they are spread across a cloud’s mass there is no central point of concentration to drag it down, plus dry air is denser than clouds, meaning they can float along on top of it.