why do clouds have a lot of colors?

Water in rivers, lakes, seas… evaporates into the air. As the steam rises, it meets the cold air and condenses into tiny water droplets (usually 0.01 mm) or ice crystals. Those billions of tiny water droplets combine to form clouds that can be seen by humans. Clouds have different thickness, thin clouds are only a few tens of meters thick, thick clouds can reach 7-8 thousand meters.

The color of clouds is due to the reflection of all visible light wavelengths from sunlight, so they appear white. But where the clouds are too thick, light cannot pass through, making them gray or black.

In the summer, before the showers come, thunderstorm clouds are formed in a large area, and are so thick that sunlight is almost impossible to penetrate. Therefore, they are usually black.

The clouds at dawn and dusk are always red. This color of the cloud is because when the sun is about to rise or set, the sun shines obliquely and has to pass through a very thick layer of the atmosphere. Then only red or orange light has a wavelength strong enough to hit the clouds. This gives the clouds a nice red-orange color.

Clouds are sometimes made up of water droplets or ice particles, sometimes a combination of the two. When the light of the sun or moon hits it, it can form beautiful colored rainbows or halos.

Jessica Tanner

Update 28 July 2023