But if they keep their cohesion long enough to touch the ground, they can become full-fledged tornadoes. On their own, they're not dangerous, simply rotating columns attached to the underside of a storm cloud, fueled by wind shear. There mere sight of one of these is sometimes enough to spark a tornado warning in some parts of Canada, and Environment Canada has been known on occasion to issue special weather statements just for funnel clouds alone. In fact, they can form in relatively calm weather due to action by sea breezes. The totally detached roll clouds can form along thunderstorms, although they typically don't portend as much active weather (they look like horizontal tornadoes, but aren't formed in the same way and don't produce tornadoes themselves). They're connected to the underside of the storm, unlike their rarer cousin the roll cloud. They're usually at the leading edge of a thunderstorm or a line of storms, and as they pass above you, you'll likely feel strong winds before being pelted with heavy rain and/or hail. Shelf clouds, like the one below, are so-called because they appear stacked to the observer. ARCUS CLOUDSĬoming from the Latin word "arch," these low-lying clouds are usually distinguished by their better known sub-types: Shelf clouds and roll clouds. That means that part of the storm is most likely to produce tornadoes, and the National Weather service says the "vast majority" of intense tornadoes form this way. WALL CLOUDSīack to stormy weather, if you see a wall cloud like the one below, get into cover.Īssociated with thunderstorms, they can lower down from the main base of a thundercloud, often cumulonimbus, and are indicative of an area of strong updraft within a storm.Īnd if they appear to be rotating, that's when they are most dangerous. There are some varieties, like cirrostratus, that cover a large chunk of the sky and can produce some nice halo effects, but by themselves they won't bring any precipitation. They form very high up and are mostly made up of ice crystals, and their appearance usually portends a coming warm front, which can alter the weather somewhat. These wispy tufts of cloud are pretty to look at, that's about all the impact you can expect. If you see them, you're in for rain and a good chance of thunderstorms, potentially severe, accompanied by torrential rains, hail, lightning and tornadoes. There's nothing ambiguous about these low-lying, but towering, pillars. They form along a cold, warm or occluded front, and can produce light rain or snow.īy far the most dangerous are cumulonimbus. The least problematic are stratocumulus, which seem a little denser, often appearing joined or with few gaps between them. Those puffy, scattered white clouds you might see on a warm summer day are cumulus, formed by convection, and aside from the occasional brief shower there's not much to fear from them.Ĭumulus does have a couple of offshoots you should watch out for. In fact, sometimes its base can appear even more featureless, due to falling rain. One, Nimbostratus (with "nimbo" signifying rain), is the most likely to rain on your parade. Low-lying, grey and at times featureless, they can look like high-flying fog banks, though true stratus clouds won't do much in the way of precipitation. There's hardly a better symbol for a gloomy day than stratus clouds. Here are eight kinds of clouds that you can use to give you an idea of what kind of weather to expect in the next little while. Sometimes a glance at the skies is enough, at least in the short term. You don't always need computer models or a fancy radar to figure out what to expect from the weather.
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