Last night, I watched Pixar movie Elemental with my partner ― and in my opinion, the best part about it was the animation.
Water flubbed and bubbled its way across the city, sparkling in the sun. Most adorably, though, plump, poodle-fluffy clouds wisped onto the screen, looking as light as candyfloss.
It’s an image many of us have; like fog, we think, clouds must be wet but weightless until they reach a pretty substantial size.
But Matteo Lane, one-half of the podcasters behind I Never Liked You, recently shared a TikTok debunking co-host Nick Smith’s belief that “clouds don’t weigh anything. They’re air” ― and it’s made a lot of app users question their science classes.
What are clouds?
“They’re not air, they’re water,” Matteo corrected his friend (to be fair, most of us who can remember the water cycle will know that one).
Per The Met Office, clouds show up when there’s too much water vapour for the air to hold. The water vapour condenses to form minute droplets in this case; this is what makes clouds visible.
They stay in the air because they’re too tiny to fall. But how much does all that weigh?
“Clouds weigh something? Also, how do they ― who’s weighing a cloud?” Nick asked.
Well, they surely do ― though Matteo’s guess of “a thousand pounds” (453 kg) was way off.
“A single cloud weighs a million pounds” (453,592-ish kg), the podcast’s producer said.
The University of Reading says that a 1km summer cumulus cloud can weigh 250 tonnes, or two blue whales; a thunderstorm can pack two million tonnes as they’re more dense.
“If we add together the weight of the water and the air in a cumulus cloud, then, it weighs a total of 1,000,250 tonnes,” they add.
Commenters had, er, thoughts
“I learn so much from Matteo Lane,” one commenter wrote under the video.
“I had no idea,” another wrote.
“Someone wasn’t paying attention to the water cycle unit in school,” yet another TikToker joked (okay, but I’m willing to bet most of us never knew clouds were THAT heavy).