The group of proud members of the cloud fandom

In meteorology, a cloud is a visible mass of liquid droplets or frozen crystals made of water or various chemicals suspended in the atmosphere above the surface of a planetary body.[1] These suspended particles are also known as aerosols and are studied in the cloud physics branch of meteorology.

Terrestrial cloud formation is the result of air in Earth's atmosphere becoming saturated due to either or both of two processes; cooling of the air and adding water vapor. With sufficient saturation, precipitation will fall to the surface; an exception is virga, which evaporates before reaching the surface.

Clouds in the troposphere, the atmospheric layer closest to Earth's surface, have Latin names due to the universal adaptation of Luke Howard's nomenclature. It was introduced in December 1802 and became the basis of a modern international system that classifies these tropospheric aerosols into several physical forms or categories, then cross-classifies them into families of low, middle and high according to cloud-base altitude range above Earth's surface. Clouds with significant vertical extent are often considered a separate family. One physical form shows free-convective upward growth into low or vertical heaps of cumulus. Other forms appear as non-convective layered sheets like low stratus, and as limited-convective rolls or ripples as with stratocumulus. Both of these layered forms have middle- and high-family variants identified respectively by the prefixes alto- and cirro-. Thin fibrous wisps of cirrus are a physical form found only at high altitudes. In the case of clouds with vertical extent, prefixes are used whenever necessary to express variations or complexities in their physical structures. These include cumulo- for complex highly convective vertical nimbus storm clouds, and nimbo- for thick stratiform layers with sufficient vertical depth to produce moderate to heavy precipitation. This process of cross-classification produces ten basic genus-types or genera, most of which can be subdivided into species and varieties. Synoptic surface weather observations use code numbers to record and report any type of tropospheric cloud visible at scheduled observation times based on its height and physical appearance.