Many of them are beautiful. Several can be breath-taking at sunset or sunrise. Their colors can range from a fluffy white to gray to a brilliant ruddy red. No matter what their appearance, cloud formations have fascinated all of us at one time or another. They were the stuff of childhood dreams. We all wondered what it would be like to soar above those cloud formations and see the Earth from the heavens. Even as adults we often wonder about them. Now, though, we wonder what they are called and what they are made of. There are many types of cloud formations. I am going to describe quite a few of them in this article and try to give you some information about each.
Cloud formations are grouped into four families: high, middle, low, and vertical. Beyond these there are other cloud formations that I will cover. Below I will break each family into its individual members and go from there.
High cloud formations develop between 3,000 and 8,000 m in the polar regions, 5,000 and 12,000 m in temperate areas, and 6,000 and 18,000 m above the tropics. There are three members of the high cloud family: Cirrocumulus, Cirrus, and Cirrostratus.