Summer Clouds

Provided by: Martin Ruzek, USRA
Summary authors & editors: Martin Ruzek

You're not likely to see clouds like these during winter in the midwest. These cumulonimbus clouds are the result of vertical motion in the atmosphere driven by convection - warm moist air rising, cooling and condensing - and are a good indication of an impending storm. Cold surface temperatures make it difficult to initiate large scale convection in the winter months at high latitudes, so you'll have to move south to find clouds like these in January.

Related Links:

• Cumulus Clouds
• Cloud Atlas
• Cloud photos and identification