News / 

How Clouds Are Formed

How Clouds Are Formed


Save Story
Leer en espaƱol

Estimated read time: Less than a minute

This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.

Dust particles and other fine particulate act as condensation nuclei (where water in the gas stage can condensate onto something). Dust is a good example of something that acts as a condensation nuclei. One thing that works well is "Silver Iodide", which is something scientists use to cloud seed to make rain. But it is somewhat expensive to drop into the clouds. At the Salt Lake Airport in the winter time when fog forms, they take Frozen Carbon Dioxide (dry ice) and grind it up and drop it out of the back of an airplane to cause the fog droplets to freeze and turn into snow and fall the the ground.

You can learn more about this subject here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud\_condensation\_nuclei

Most recent News stories

Dan Pope

    STAY IN THE KNOW

    Get informative articles and interesting stories delivered to your inbox weekly. Subscribe to the KSL.com Trending 5.
    By subscribing, you acknowledge and agree to KSL.com's Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

    KSL Weather Forecast