Remember Your Hardhats!


	Remember Your Hardhats!

AtlLiberal

7-1-2009 8:36 PM

83 views

AtlLiberal says:

This question came to me while I was outside this afternoon. How much does a cloud weigh? The answer surprised me. Pretty neat!

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7-5-2009 12:06 AM

mcsmithblack

Questions like this usually occur to me while I'm on the toilette. Unfortunately, I usually forget to check it out later. Glad you didn't.

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<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://www.clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/6ffc3fab-98b2-46cf-891e-64167ecf54f7/99F612E2-7C58-4E69-91AD-73204AC7B0A8/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1263/can-a-cloud-weigh-as-much-as-a-747" href="http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1263/can-a-cloud-weigh-as-much-as-a-747" style="font-size: 11px;">www.straightdope.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1263/can-a-cloud-weigh-as-much-as-a-747"><H1>Can a cloud weigh as much as a 747?</H1></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1263/can-a-cloud-weigh-as-much-as-a-747"><P class="answer">
 The maximum takeoff gross weight of a 747 is 875,000 pounds. Did you know this includes six million parts? Three million of which are fasteners? One and a half million of which are rivets? The people at Boeing are full of fascinating facts like this.  
</P></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1263/can-a-cloud-weigh-as-much-as-a-747">Anyway, let's be scientific and say a 747 weighs 400,000 kilograms. The amount of water vapor in clouds varies widely depending on temperature, pressure, etc., but five grams per cubic meter is about average. </blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1263/can-a-cloud-weigh-as-much-as-a-747"><P class="answer">
 A good sized cumulonimbus cloud, or thunderhead, might be ten kilometers tall, with a base ten kilometers in diameter. Noodling a bit, we come up with a volume of 785 billion cubic meters per cloud (you can see this is not looking good). This gives us a mass of roughly four billion kilograms per cloud, or the equivalent of not one but 10,000 747s.  
</P></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1263/can-a-cloud-weigh-as-much-as-a-747">To put it another way, a modest-size cloud, one kilometer in diameter and 100 meters thick, has a mass equivalent to one 747. </blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/99F612E2-7C58-4E69-91AD-73204AC7B0A8/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content6.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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