Clouds: How Much Do They Weigh?

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It’s shocking to think that the average cumulus clouds weigh 1.1 million pounds! This means that at any given moment, there are millions of pounds of water floating above your head. That’s the equivalent weight of 319 Ferrari 458’s. Water weighs 8.34 lbs per gallon so when you do the math, the average cloud contains approximately 131,894 gallons of water.

So, how does the weight of all that water stay afloat? Well, you have to realize that weight is spread out into millions of droplets over a very large space. Some of these droplets are so minuscule that you would need over a million of them to make a single raindrop.

Cumulus clouds are puffy clouds that sometimes look like pieces of floating cotton. The base of each cloud is often flat and average only 3300 feet above the ground. The top of the cloud has rounded towers.

Dangerous Cumulus Clouds: Feared by paragliders and hang gliders, the base of cumulus clouds can be a dangerous place when thermal updrafts contribute to a phenomenon known as ‘cloud suck’. This is when pilots experience significant lift at the base of cumulus clouds, they can be pulled up thousands of feet within seconds.

Did you know much of Earth’s water is older than the Sun and came from Deep Space? Learn More

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