What is cumulonimbus?

Cumulonimbus is a big, powerful cloud that can make thunderstorms, rain, and even snow.

Imagine you're playing with building blocks, each block you stack makes the tower taller. Cumulonimbus clouds are like a super-tall tower made of water droplets and ice crystals. They start small, but as they grow, they can reach all the way up into the sky, sometimes even above airplanes!

Cumulonimbus starts with warm air rising from the ground. This warm air carries moisture, like when you breathe on a cold window and it fogs up. As this warm, moist air rises, it cools down, and the moisture turns into tiny drops of water or ice.

These drops keep rising until they can’t go any higher, then they fall back down as rain or snow, creating storms and lightning, just like when you shake a bottle of soda and it fizzes all over.