I’m proud to say I have the curiosity of a 10-year-old, always drawn to questions that seem to be hiding in plain sight. As a kid, I was fascinated by clouds, a curiosity that led me to dive into Earth Science in 9th grade, where I aimed to understand the world around me. My teacher, Mr. McCarthy, would be proud to see where that spark has taken me. But enough with the reminiscing!

Before we can understand why clouds are white we first have to familiarize ourselves with a few basic science concepts so that everyone can follow along - but not to worry, I'll keep it light. First of all, what is a cloud? A clouds is a mass of water vapor or ice crystals that is suspended in the atmosphere and is formed when water evaporates and condenses in the sky. Secondly, why do clouds form? Clouds form when a part of the sky becomes cooler allowing the water in that cooler air to change from a gas (water vapor) into a liquid (water). Meteorologists call the air is "saturated" when this happens. The water condenses around airborne particles such as ice, dust, or sea salt and these are called condensation nuclei. Fun Fact: The temperature, wind and other conditions where and when a cloud forms is what determines what type of cloud it will be but cloud types are a different blog post altogether.

So now that we have learned what clouds are and how they are formed, we now need just a few more definitions before we can answer the question at hand. Next, we ask: what is light? Sunlight, also known as visible light, emanates from our sun and when this light is processed in our brains, it is seen as the color white. Furthermore, when we see a rainbow like the one below, we are viewing the full spectrum of colors of light when it is split up and spread out but when all the waves are seen together, they make white light.

Each color of light has a different wavelength which makes sense. The shortest wavelength in the spectrum is violet and the longest is red. But larger particles like water droplets within a cloud scatter all wavelengths with about the same effectiveness. So, what happens when all wavelengths of light hit and penetrate a cloud? The light is scattered around the cloud interacting with all the other droplets and particles and combine to generate the color white. So, that's why clouds are white!

That's all fine and good, but what about all the other shades of gray of clouds? (not 50 Shades of Grey, this is a family Blog). Excellent question young Padawan, let's continue.

The bottom of a cloud - the cloud base - is often gray as a result of the same scattering of light waves that makes them white. Basically, when light is scattered inside a cloud it usually is sent back up within the cloud, or out to the sides, and that makes the upper part of the cloud whiter than the base. This effect is more noticeable in rain clouds because the water droplets are bigger and they scatter more light waves as we can clearly see in the image below. Logically, we understand that less light from the Sun reaches the bottom of the cloud which means less light to scatter and the darker, grayer color that is has. Consider this: Why, when you look out the window of a plane flying above the clouds, are they always a brilliant, bright white—almost like teeth in a toothpaste commercial?They simply have a constant and strong source of light, that's why.

And the bonus question - why is the sky blue? We already know that light from the sun is comprised of all the colors of the rainbow. When this light penetrates the nitrogen and oxygen particles in our atmosphere, it is scattered fairly equally in all directions. We know that violet light, with its shorter wavelength, scatters much more than red light. However, because our eyes are less sensitive to violet, and blue light has the next shortest wavelength, we perceive more blue than violet. So, when we look at the sky, we’re actually seeing the vast space where blue light has been scattered—which is why the sky is blue!

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