Why do clouds have all kinds of shapes?

The reason why the shape of clouds changes is influenced by the weather. Clouds in the sky can be roughly summarized into three shapes: blocky, wavy and layered.

Clouds like cotton or mountain peaks often float in the blue sky in isolation and dispersion. This kind of cloud is called a block cloud. Usually, massive clouds are formed by the upward movement of air, or the air only flows in a small range.

Some clouds look like undulating waves. We call them billowing clouds. This is usually caused by the uneven distribution of cold and heat in a certain layer of air in the sky. The air at the peak is rising, and the air at the trough is falling.

Clouds all over the sky are layered clouds, often thick and wide, which can cover a large area. Layered clouds will appear when hot air meets cold air.

Extended data:

See the weather from the clouds:

"There are hook clouds in the sky and rain in the ground": Hook clouds refer to cirrus clouds with hooks. Behind this cloud, there are often fronts (especially warm fronts), low pressure or low pressure troughs moving, which indicates that rain is coming;

"Battery cloud, rain": Battery cloud refers to fort-shaped high cumulus cloud or fort-shaped stratocumulus cloud, which appears in front of the trough with low pressure, indicating that the air is unstable, and thunderstorms usually come every 8- 10 hours.

"Clouds pass through clouds, and it rains": Clouds pass through clouds, which means that the moving directions of the upper and lower clouds are inconsistent, that is to say, the height and wind direction of clouds are inconsistent, which often occurs near the front or low pressure, so it indicates rain, and sometimes the wind direction of clouds is opposite to the ground, so there is a saying that "the sky changes when the clouds go against the wind".

"The river pig crosses the river with heavy rain": The river pig refers to the broken rain clouds under nimbostratus. The appearance of this cloud indicates that there is enough water vapor in nimbostratus, and a rainstorm is coming. Sometimes broken rain clouds are blown to sunny places by strong winds, and it is also a precursor to rain to see river pig-like clouds floating across the "Milky Way" at night.

Baidu Encyclopedia-Cloud