Topography or orographic forcing – The topography – or shape and features of the area – can cause clouds to be formed. When air is forced to rise over a barrier of mountains or hills it cools as it rises. Layered clouds are often produced this way.
What is the definition of clouds in geography?
Visible liquid suspended in the air, such as fog. Up-down direction, or at a right angle to Earth and the horizon. Mass of warm air that replaces a mass of cold air. State of the atmosphere, including temperature, atmospheric pressure, wind, humidity, precipitation, and cloudiness.
How high are the clouds above the ground?
Low level clouds are generall.
What type of clouds are associated with mountains?
Clouds associated with mountains. Banner cloud formation. (a) Large-scale winds (blue) blow across a mountain peak (brown), causing high pressure (H) on the upwind side and low pressure (L) on the downwind side. (b) The low pressure sucks lower altitude air (purple) up the mountain slope.
Orographic clouds are clouds that develop in response to the forced lifting of air by the earth’s topography(mountains for example). Photograph by: Holle Air passing over a mountain oscillates up and down as it moves downstream (as shown in the diagram below).
When air is forced to rise over a barrier of mountains or hills it cools as it rises. Layered clouds are often produced this way. Frontal – Clouds are formed when a mass of warm air rises up over a mass of cold, dense air over large areas along fronts . A ‘front’ is the boundary between warm, moist air and cooler, drier air.
High clouds (cirrus, cirrocumulus, cirrostratus) observed over the middle latitudes typically reside at altitudes near and above 20,000 feet. At such rarefied altitudes, high clouds are composed of ice crystals.
Less light is reflected. The rain cloud appears black or gray. Clouds form when air becomes saturate d, or filled, with water vapor. Warm air can hold more water vapor than cold air, so lowering the temperature of an air mass is like squeezing a sponge. Clouds are the visible result of that squeeze of cooler, moist air.
This of course begs the question “What causes lenticular clouds to form over mountains?”
Lenticular clouds form over mountains. Shutterstock Once past the mountain, the air sinks back to its previous level. As it sinks, it warms and the cloud evaporates. But it can overshoot, in which case the air mass bobs back up allowing another Lenticular cloud to form.
You could be asking “What type of clouds form over swamps?”
Banner clouds form on the downwind side of a mountain peak. Pileus clouds form over fast-growing cumulus clouds. Fumulus clouds form over swamps. Fractus clouds form in turbulent, humid air near the ground. Billow clouds form due to KH waves. Fumulus clouds form over swamps.
Can we predict the weather from clouds?
Our final two cloud types will not help you predict the coming weather, but they do give a glimpse of the extraordinarily complicated motions of the atmosphere. Smooth, lens-shaped Lenticular clouds form as air is blown up and over a mountain range. Lenticular clouds form over mountains.