Fifth Grade Weather Lab #2: Humidity, Clouds, and Precipitation
Humidity is the amount of moisture in the air. When it is humid out, you feel sticky, your glasses can fog up, and your hair can frizz.
When water is warmed by the sun, it evaporates into the atmosphere. As the water vapor rises, it (CCC) Cools, Condenses, and forms a Cloud. There are three basic ways in which clouds form:
Types of
Clouds and their precipitation
Cirrus Stratus Cumulous Cumulonimbus Fog
Cloud
Precipitation
● High in the atmosphere
● Ice crystals
● Wispy and feather like
● Cirrus cumulous clouds “snow storms”
Blanket like layers Puffy and rise up from a flat bottom
● Rain or storms
● Gray or black
● Vertical (develop upward)
● thunderstorms
● ground level
● moist air at ground level cools
Snow ● Long lasting
● Smaller raindrops
Heavy rain last for a short period of time
● Larger raindrops
● Hold a lot of water
● Turbulent
(violent)
● Can reach high altitudes
● Downpours
● HAIL
Today’s lab we will look at the four main types of precipitation and how they are formed using candy.
Key: skittles (nucleus), fruit roll up (condensation around the nucleus), nerds (cloud droplets collect), marshmallow (ice nucleus), popcorn (updrafts and down drafts with freezing), blue string (falls through cold air), and red string (falls through warm air)
Rain: condensation around nucleus-cloud droplets collect-falls through warm air
Sleet: condensation around nucleus-cloud droplets collect-raindrop-falls through cold air

Snow: condensation around ice nucleus-cold water freezes around ice nucleus- ice crystals grow larger-snowflakes- falls through cold ground temperature
Hail: condensation around nucleus-cloud droplets collect-freezes-cloud droplets collect around ice crystal-freezes-popcorns up and down with updrafts and down drafts collecting and refreezing over and over-falls through warm air