This document discusses various atmospheric processes related to cloud formation and precipitation. It explains different types of clouds like cirrus, cumulus and stratus clouds and how they form at different altitudes. It also discusses cloud lifting mechanisms like adiabatic cooling and frontal lifting. Additionally, it covers precipitation processes like the Bergeron process, how rain, snow, sleet and hail form through differing temperature and moisture conditions in the atmosphere.

1. By: Jorge Rodriguez

2.  When temperature is changing even though
heat isn't being given or taken away
 When air expands it cools and when air is
compressed it gets warm, when this happens
this is called dry adiabatic rate
 When cooling is at a slower rate because of heat
is being added it is called wet adiabatic

3.  Mountains act as barriers to air flow
 As air goes up the mountain slope adiabatic
cooling begins to make clouds and
precipitation
 When the air reaches the leeward side of he
mountain most of its moisture has been lost
and condensation and precipitation is less
likely to happen
http://www.sci.uidaho.edu/script
er/geog100/lect/05-atmos-water-
wx/05-part-7-atmos-lifting-
fronts/ch5-part-7a-atmos-liftin.htm

4.  When masses of warm air and cold air collide
producing a front
 Cool denser air act as a barrier over the less
denser air.
 Weather producing fronts are associated with
specific storm systems which is called middle
latitude cyclones

5.  When air flows in from more than one
direction it begins to flow upward because it
cant go down
 Causes cloud development and precipitation
 Air movement and the rise of it is helped by
solar heating of the land

6.  When the volume of air was forced to rise, its
temperature will drop because of its expansion
 The warm air that is less dense in its surrounding air,
will keep going upward until it reaches a altitude
where its temperature equals its surrounding air
 When stable air is moved above the earth surface, the
clouds that form are widespread and have little
vertical thickness.

7.  When water vapor in the air changes to a liquid
 When condensation happens in the air above
the ground, tiny bits of particulate matter
called condensation nuclei are used as a surface
for water vapor condensation
 When condensation happens the growth rate of
cloud droplets is very rapid

8.  All clouds are one of these basic forms: cirrus, cumulus
and stratus
 Cirrus clouds are high white and thin, they have a
feathery appearance also occur as delicate veil like
sheets
 Cumulus clouds normally have a flat base and look like
rising domes or towers, they clouds are describe of
having a cauliflower structure
 Stratus clouds are layers that cover up most of the sky

9.  Normally have a bases of 6000 meters
 Three could types make up the family of the
high clouds, cirrus, cirrostratus and
cirrocumulus
 All high clouds are thin and white and are
often made up of crystal ice
 High clouds are not consider precipitation
makers

10.  Middle clouds occupy heights from 2000 to
6000 meters, have the prefix alto in their name
 Altocumulus clouds are larger and denser than
cirrocumulus clouds
 Altostratus clouds a white and grayish sheet
covering the sky with the sun or moon
 Light snow or drizzle may accompany these
clouds

11.  Low clouds form below 2000 meters
 there are three members of the low cloud family they
are stratus, stratocumulus and nimbostratus
 Stratus clouds are a fog like layers of clouds the cover
up most of the sky
 Stratocumulus clouds are when stratus clouds create a
scalloped bottom that appear long parallel rolls
 Nimbostratus clouds form during stable air, this cloud
is one of the main precipitation makers

12.  These clouds aren’t in any of the other three
height categories, they are in the low height
range
 Often extend to middle or high altitude
 They are all related to unstable air except the
cumulus cloud, that is connected to fair
weather

13.  Fogs are the result of radiation cooling or the
movement of air over a cooled surface
 Fogs can also form by cool air because of the
earth surface cools rapidly by radiation
 Fog also is caused by evaporation because
when rising water vapor meets cold air it
begins to condense and rise with the air that is
being warmed from below

14.  The bergeron process relies on two physical
process which is super cooling and
supersaturated
 Super cooling is when water is in the liquid
state but under 0 degrees Celsius
 Supersaturated is when air is 100 percent
relative humidity

15.  salt the water absorbing particle can remove
water vapor from the air even if the relative
humidity is less than 100 percent
 Large water droplets form the humidity that is
being taken away as these droplets move
through the clouds they begin to collide

16.  The term rain means water that falls from
clouds and that a diameter of .5 mm
 When temperature is above 4 degrees Celsius
snow flakes will melt and turn into rain before
they hit the ground
 When temperatures are warmer than -5
degrees Celsius ice crystals join together a
become bigger clumps

17.  Sleet is small particles of clear translucent that form
from temperatures above freezing overlie a
subfreezing ground
 Glaze is also known as freezing rain but they form
when rain drops become super cold as they fall
through subfreezing air
 Hail is produced in the cumulonimbus cloud they are
in the shape of small ice pellets that grow as they
collect super cooled rain drops