ASK THE METEOROLOGIST
“Why are clouds white?”
Mrs. Schultz’s Class, St. Mary’s School
Why are clouds white? Well, it has to do with the kind of light that is reflected through the water droplets that make up the cloud. These droplets are large enough to scatter the light of all seven wavelengths, those being red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. Because all of those colors are scattered uniformly, no one color dominates. That then makes the cloud appear white!
Clouds are sometimes gray when light cannot reach all of the way through the cloud, or when other clouds are around that cast shadows on the clouds we see. Sometimes, clouds can even appear to have a green tint. This happens when the water droplets in the clouds, and sometimes hail, are low enough to reflect the color of the earth’s surface. That may be green, or if there’s no grass, brown.
Chief Meteorologist Kate McKenna