Cloud Spotting for Beginners Part 3: Cumulonimbus

Welcome to part three of our cloud spotting for beginners series! A series where we guide you through the most common clouds in the sky.

In this post we look at Cumulonimbus, also known as the ‘King or Queen of Clouds’.

It is the tallest of the ten main cloud types, extending from perhaps a couple of thousand feet right into the upper reaches of the troposphere, perhaps as high as 15,000 m (50,000 ft).

This is the storm cloud, which can produce thunder and lightning as well as hail. Seen from a distance, it tends to spread out at the top in an enormous canopy that is often likened to a blacksmith’s anvil because it extends out ahead of the storm.

The ‘nimbus’ part of its name signifies that this is, by definition, a precipitation cloud. The only other main cloud that is classed as such is the Nimbostratus. Though they are both precipitating clouds, Cumulonimbus and Nimbostratus shed their moisture in very different ways.

What are the characteristics of the Cumulonimbus?

Cumulonimbus produces sudden, heavy and generally short-lived showers. These can be torrential, accompanied by strong, gusty winds, and they tend to be localized. The streaks of rain from a distant Cumulonimbus can appear in just one region on the horizon.

Nimbostratus, by contrast, produces moderate precipitation that takes a while to arrive and a while – often, it feels, a long while – to depart.

In contrast to the tall, majestic form of the Cumulonimbus, the Nimbostratus is just an endless, featureless, thick wet blanket of cloud, making it the least popular cloud genus. Not so the royalty of the cloud world.

Cumulonimbus clouds are the storms that storm chasers chase, especially when they coordinate together as individual cells in enormous multi-cell and supercell storms.
They are mighty expressions of the power that drives our atmosphere.

Keep your eye out for the rest of our Cloud Spotting series and don’t forget to submit your weather and climate photos to the Standard Chartered Weather Photographer of the Year Competition by 18 June. Submit your photos via the Zealous submission platform to be in with a chance of winning up to £5,000!

Submit your photo to Standard Chartered Weather Photographer of the Year

This post is an excerpt from the RMetS book Weather A-Z. The original author is Gavin Petor-Pinney, Founder of the Cloud Appreciation Society, who wrote a portion of the book on the clouds that capture his imagination. Photo © Paul Williams.