Probably everyone has dreamed of sitting or walking on a cloud in the air. But you haven’t thought about what would happen if a cloud fell on you. Even if you think about it, you might think they are too light. Although clouds are made up of water molecules that seem almost weightless, they actually have enormous masses.
Of course, just as a person cannot sit on a cloud, it is not possible for a cloud to fall on us. Similar to what happens in the bathroom after a hot shower, what we see as a cloud is just water vapor that condenses to form tiny water droplets that come together.
The weight of this creature, which has no solid structure, is calculated by calculating the mass of the water molecules.
Given that the density of water molecules directly affects the weight of a cloud, different types of clouds will all have different weights. However, looking only at cumulus clouds is a good enough example for this calculation.
Researchers at the US National Center for Atmospheric Research calculated the density of a cumulus cloud to be about 0.5 grams per cubic meter of water. For a one kilometer wide cloud, if you calculate the cubic meter with a density of 1,000,000,000 x 0.5, you’ll find the total weight of a cumulus cloud of that size is 500,000 kilograms.
Considering that a Boeing 747-SP weighs a relatively light 220,000 kilograms, it may seem strange that these clouds can soar through the air.
The distribution of this weight over such a large area means that the mass at any one point is much smaller. Clouds are also mostly made up of water droplets, and gravity doesn’t have much of an effect on them. Surprisingly, dry air is also denser than a cloud, so they can sit comfortably on a cushion of dry air without passing through them.
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