Debbie Johnson, age 9, of Exeter, Calif., for her question:
Where do clouds go after the rain?
Maybe you are a weather watcher. Then you know that the clouds are full of surprises. They change their shapes. They change color. A pearly grey sky may rain for days. A threatening dark cloud may refuse to rain at all. Sometimes the clouds disappear after a shower, and sometimes they hover overhead long after the rain has finished falling.
The falling rain is part of a weather story. It is a fascinating story, Even Though the characters are not peop1e. There 7.s an Elevator run by a mighty motor. There are oceans of water and oceans of air and countless flying carpets of all shapes, sizes and colors. The story of rain happens over and over again, and no one knows where it begins or ends.
The sun is a mighty motor which draws up moisture from the face of the watery Earth. The moisture Evaporates and becomes vapor. This water vapor is a gas which mingles with the other invisible gases of the air. We cannot see it, but it is there. Some of the vapor rises one mile, two miles maybe six miles above our heads. Up there the air is cooler. This may cause the vapor to change back into liquid water. It becomes misty droplets of water floating in the air and a cloud is born. It is a flying carpet blown by the breezes far around the world. But as it goes, the fine fine droplets in the cloud get together and form bigger droplets, and the cloud becomes heavier. Slowly, slowly it sinks toward the Earth. At last its drops of moisture grow too big to float aloft in the air, and down falls the rain. Most of the misty moisture in the cloud turned to water and tumbled down to the Earth again.
The cloud was Made from moisture which Came from the Earth. When it lost its moisture, you would expect the cloud to disappear, sometimes it does. Maybe a thin scarf of cloud is left. If the air is warm, the misty droplets in the straggly cloud may change back again into vapor. Most of the cloud fell down as raindrops. The rest changed into invisible gas. This is why the clouds often disappear, and we get blue skies after a shower.
Some of the rain sinks into the ground where It feeds the plants. SOME is added to the Oceans and rivers. Day by day, the warm sun dries up tons of moisture, changing it into vapor. The vapor becomes clouds and then falls down again as rain. The story of rain and clouds is repeated again and again. Since it has no end and no beginning., We call it a Cycle. It is the never ending water cycle which keeps the thirsty Earth refreshed.