Quoted By:
>this cloud means party time
there are two types of rain clouds in my retard knowledge:
>stratus
this is what you associate with like seattle and portland. gray skies. light rain but all the time, pacific wonderland.
they are very wide clouds and not tall which creates an overcast sky
>cumulonimbus
when you see this you know shit's about to get real. picrel. These clouds start out as cumulus puffy clouds but get expanded cumulus and start to get tall. atmospheric pressure or some bullshit starts to push them up into the outer limited until they reach a level of the atmosphere they won't climb anymore. so you start to see the anvil top flatten out. i read somewhere ice crystals start to form at the top although i'm not sure how this creates lightning.
these clouds when they evolve to stage 3: cumulus>expanded cumulus (forgot real name)>cumulonimbus. you start to see the process throughout the day.
i've seen them expand really fast like within 10 to 15 minutes. you look away, and bam, the chariots are rolling in.
where i'm at we tend to see the buildup start around noon and fireworks in the afternoon. midwest and east coast gets more of theirs at night. guessing climate differences because the gulf stream petering out around that north/south line going through texas kansas dakotas and whatnot where everything west is super dry until the west coast.
