Have you ever laid down on the grass and gazed at a large, puffy cloud that looks like an ice cream cone on a hot summer day? Or, maybe you saw a ship sailing across the sea. Perhaps one that was shaped like a cake? Yum! Well, how do these large, white things appear in the sky? And I doubt that you knew that an average-sized cloud could weigh as much as one thousand tons! Can you believe that? It's hard for even me to believe.
Let's get back to how clouds are made. The 'recipe', as some people call it, is simply water, rising air, and dust. When it's hot and sticky out means that the air is humid, and the hot air has a lot of water molecules in it. You see, hot air can hold more moisture in it than cold air. That is why you get chapped lips when it's cold, dry air. Also, hot air rises, so obviously that is the rising air used to make clouds. As humid air rises, it cools down and becomes cooler air, and it condenses. Condensing means that water droplets form in the air. When you wake up in the early morning and it was cold last night, you will find dew because the surface that the dew condensed onto was warmer, but became colder throughout the night.
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