Ever wonder how much a cloud weighs?
A weather expert, Dr. Peggy Lemone, has done some calculations to help us out with this bit of trivia. To begin with, she started with a very simple white puffy cloud – a cumulus cloud. Dr. LeMone, senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, said: ‘The water in the little cloud weighs about 550 tonnes. Or if you want to convert it to something that might be a little more meaningful – think of elephants.’ To be more precise, think 100 elephants. That’s because an elephant weighs close to six tonnes. So you need that many in a typical cumulus cloud. Thank goodness for us the water isn’t in elephant-sized particles or we wouldn’t survive the jumbo downpours. Instead, it’s in tiny, tiny particles, explained Dr. LeMone. That’s why a hundred elephants-worth of water can remain suspended in the sky.
