Behind the Forecast: How much does a cloud weigh

By Thursday afternoon we’ll have a very summerlike day on our hands with highs in the lower... — By Thursday afternoon we’ll have a very summerlike day on our hands with highs in the lower 80s, a decent breeze, and plenty of sunshine. Soak it up while you can!(Gotta Be Worth It | Pexels)

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WAVE) - Clouds. They look light and fluffy so they can’t weigh much at all, right? Wrong.

First, consider this. Air is not weightless. Air pressure, or barometric pressure, at sea level, is around 14.5 pounds per square inch.

Clouds are comprised of a lot of tiny water droplets. For a cumulus cloud, the water density has been estimated to be near half a gram of water per cubic meter. A one cubic kilometer cloud contains a billion cubic meters. Doing the calculations, we find that there are five hundred million grams of water droplets in a one cubic meter cloud. That translates to about 500 thousand kilograms or 1.1 million pounds. That’s around five times as heavy as a blue whale, the largest animal in the world.

So why isn’t that weight just dropping down on us? Well, the weight isn’t concentrated in one area; it’s spread out over a large space. Also, water droplets can be so small that gravity barely affects them. Clouds are less dense than dry air so that buoyancy keeps them afloat.

Eventually, once a cloud’s water density increases, the droplets also get larger (and heavier), and the cloud will fall as rain.

The density of other types of clouds would affect their weight. For example, a cumulonimbus cloud would be heavier than cumulus clouds due to it being made up of more water droplets.

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