Introduction
It’s a question that I’ve wondered many times over the years, but somehow I always failed to follow up on finding the answer. With birds to see, butterflies to identify, and mammals to spotlight, I just never quite got around to honing my cloud identification skills. I could remember “cumulonimbus,” from my 4th-grade science class, and that’s about it.
Do you need to know the different types of clouds for school, or are you just interested in what’s up there in the sky? At first glance, all clouds can look pretty much the same, but with a bit of knowledge and practice you can soon learn how to tell exactly which kind of cloud you’re looking at.
Task
In this guide, we show you all the steps to becoming a cloud-identifying expert. We’ll go over the 4 main types of clouds and give you the info you need to identify each cloud type, including cloud names, their shape, height in the sky, color, and the weather you can expect them to bring.
We’ll end with some additional tips for identifying clouds, including easy tricks to differentiate similar-looking cloud types.
How many types of clouds are there? Generally speaking, there are four main types of clouds you’ll see in the sky, and we discuss each of them below. For each of these different types of clouds, we’ve included a picture of the cloud, a short description, and the following additional information:
Clouds are grouped into 4 different genera, organized based on shape and the altitude where they’re found.
The genera names are all formed from the same five latin terms — cirro, cumulo, strato, nimbo, alto. Learning what each of these Latin roots means is key to keeping your clouds straight:
Cumulo translates to “heaped.” Think puffy, piled, marsh mellow clouds.
Height: Low
Color: White
Shape: Fluffy, tall, often described as looking similar to cauliflower
Weather: Typically sunny
The stereotypical puffy cloud you probably drew a lot of when you were a kid, cumulus clouds are dense individual clouds that are bright white on top and gray underneath. They typically appear earlier in the day when it’s sunny.
Strato translates to “layered.” Clouds with strato in their name are often flat and form a wide layer across the sky.
Height: Low
Color: Gray or white
Shape: Featureless flat layer
Weather: Gloomy weather, sometimes with light precipitation
Similar to fog (but on the horizon instead of on the ground), stratus clouds are a gray featureless layer of clouds that cover all or most of the sky.
Nimbo translates to “rain,” and is used for the two clouds that regularly produce rain.
Height: Low
Color: Dark gray
Shape: Large thick layer
Weather: Steady rain or snow
Nimbus clouds form a thick, dark layer across the sky. They are often thick enough to blot out the sun. Like cumulonimbus clouds, they are associated with heavy precipitation, but, unlike cumulonimbus, you can’t pick out individual nimbostratus clouds.
Cirro translates to “curl.” These clouds are sometimes (but not always) curled and are found in the highest layer of the troposphere.
Height: High
Color: White
Shape: Wispy or feathery
Weather: May mean a warm front is approaching
Wispy clouds located high in the atmosphere are likely cirrus clouds. They are thin and white with lots of blue sky visible. They can occur in fair weather or when a warm front or large storm is approaching.
Process
Here are some materials you may need:
Blue cardstock paper (we used 12″ x 12″ size)
Green cardstock paper
Cotton balls
Gray paint
Sponge brush
Markers
Scissors
School glue
Directions:
Start by cutting out a small strip of grass from your green cardstock paper and glue it to the button of your blue cardstock paper. Use your markers to draw trees in your grass.2. With your Cloud book as a reference, make the different types of clouds out of cotton balls and glue them onto your blue cardstock paper. Manipulating the cotton balls is great for strengthening those fine motor muscles. Stretch the cotton balls out to make long straight clouds that fill the sky, or pull off pieces of a cotton ball to make smaller balls of clouds or wispy clouds up high in the sky.
After making your clouds, you may want to add more details to a few of your clouds with gray paint and markers. We found it worked best to use a foam brush to dab paint onto our cotton balls. My preschooler also drew rain and lightning under a few of her clouds.
Next, cut out the cloud labels from the Preschool Cloud Activity Printable and line them up next to your cloud picture. Use the book as a guide again and discuss what each cloud is called, find the correct label for each of your clouds, and glue them onto your cloud picture.
Now, next time you are curious about the weather or what the weather is going to be like you can look out your window or go outside, observe the clouds in the sky, and be your own meteorologist.
Evaluation
Rubrics in drawing and describing the types of clouds by using cotton balls and other materials.
3 points
2 points
1 points
Can easily draw and describe the types of clouds based on their characteristics through differentiated activities.
Can draw and describe the types of clouds based on their characteristics through differentiated activities with minimal errors.
Effort was made but drawing and describing the types of clouds were vaguely done.
Conclusion
In this lesson, students should have learned the different types of cloud as well as how to identify them. They should also learn how to properly set up a still life clouds made of cotton. Lastly, they should have learned how high, low, sharp outlines, flat, shape, color, and the texture.
Credits
All in all, there are ten fundamental types of clouds. Often, you'll some places simply class clouds as cirrus, stratus, and cumulus because these clouds are the most common and representative for each altitude class.