What are cirrus and stratus clouds?

What are 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 cirrus and stratus examples of?

The list of cloud types groups the main genera as high (cirrus, cirro-), middle (alto-), multi-level (nimbostratus, cumulus, cumulonimbus), and low (stratus, strato-) according to the altitude level or levels at which each cloud is normally found.

What is a cirrus cloud what kind of weather is associated with a cirrus cloud?

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

What is cirrus stratus Nimbus?

These types are Cirrus (meaning hair like), Stratus (meaning layer), Cumulus (meaning pile) and Nimbus (meaning rain producing). Each main classification may be further subdivided to provide a means of identifying the many variations which are observed in the atmosphere.

What kind of weather does altostratus clouds bring?

What weather is associated with altostratus clouds? Altostratus clouds often form ahead of a warm or occluded front. As the front passes, the altostratus layer deepens and bulks out to become nimbostratus, which produces rain or snow. As a result, sighting it can usually indicate a change in the weather is on the way.

What type of weather do stratus clouds bring?

What weather is associated with stratus clouds? Stratus is usually accompanied by little to no rainfall but if it is thick enough, it can produce light drizzle. This drizzle can also fall in the form of light snow if cold enough.

What clouds produce snow?

Altostratus Clouds – Altostratus clouds, also known as snow clouds, are gray or blue-gray clouds that completely cover the sky. They’re made of dense ice crystals and water droplets that can precipitate either continuous rain or snow.

What do cirrus clouds produce?

ice crystals
Cirrus clouds often produce hair-like filaments (similar to the virga produced in liquid–water clouds) called fall streaks, and they are made of heavier ice crystals that fall from the cloud. The sizes and shapes of fall streaks are determined by the wind shear.

Does cirrus clouds produce rain?

They often form in advance of a warm front, where the air masses meet at high levels, indicating a change in the weather is on the way. Technically these clouds produce precipitation but it never reaches the ground.

What do stratus clouds indicate?

If you see stratus clouds, that’s the time to get inside and stay there. Stratus clouds mean rain if it is warm and snow if it is cold. They look like a huge gray blanket that hangs low in the sky. Sometimes stratus clouds are on the ground or very near the ground, and then we call them fog.

What weather does stratus clouds bring?

What clouds are created from stratus or altostratus clouds?

Altostratus clouds often form ahead of a warm or occluded front. As the front passes, the altostratus layer deepens and bulks out to become nimbostratus, which produces rain or snow.

What’s the difference between cirrus clouds and stratus clouds?

Cirrus clouds are wispy, feathery, and composed entirely of ice crystals. They often are the first sign of an approaching warm front or upper-level jet streak. Unlike cirrus, cirrostratus clouds form more of a widespread, veil-like layer (similar to what stratus clouds do in low levels).

What do cirrus clouds mean in the sky?

Cirrus clouds are high feathery clouds. They are up so high they are actually made of ice particles. They are indicators of fair weather when they are scattered in a clear blue sky. Click on the image to view the large version.

Why are cirrus clouds made of ice crystals?

Cirrus clouds are thin clouds made of ice crystals that form very high in the sky, above 18,000 feet. These clouds are the highest clouds, and the temperature at the height where they form is about 36 degrees Celsius below zero, which is why they are made of ice crystals.

What happens when water falls from a cirrus cloud?

Cirrus clouds do create precipitation, which is water that falls from a cloud as rain, snow, hail, or sleet. However, that precipitation doesn’t make it to the ground when it falls because it evaporates, or changes back into a gas.