We have some pretty interesting names to describe what we see in the sky: lenticular, mammatus, asperitus, castellanus.
Let's dissect, starting with the ten basic types.
Image from Geo for CXC
Clouds are classified by how high up the base of the cloud is (low, mid and high) and what sort of shape they form (stratus or cumulus). This can tell us what kind of weather to expect.
Stratus are clouds in a layer, usually a grey, widespread sheet. Cumulus are the puffy, cauliflower-like, clumpy cloud, often with tall vertical development.
CUMULUS
Can range from 'fair-weather' cumulus (or if you want to be really weather nerdy: 'cu', pronounced like 'Q'), to great towering beasts of a cloud, extending well up into the atmosphere.
They form with clear air around them, and move with the wind, so it goes from sunny to cloudy to sunny. If they have enough vertical development, the particles inside become too heavy, and rain falls out. So, we go from sunny, to downpour, back to sunny.
If they grow enough, they become cumulonimbus, the thunderstorm cloud.
A perfect example of cumulus clouds, growing enough to produce wet weather (and the hit and miss nature of showers and thunderstorms). One part of the landscape is in a downpour, the rest are dry. Image from Australian Sky and Weather
STRATUS
Limited vertical development means less rain particles inside, so it's usually associated with drizzle.
But altostratus are beefier, and can be a sign of rain on the way, particularly associated with the huge cloudbands that come down from the tropics. When they develop into nimbostratus, it can be the favourite type of weather in agricultural areas at the end of a drought: multiple days of light to moderate, steady rain.
Stratus or altostratus (depending on the elevation of this land), forming nimbostratus, with a hint of stratocumulus too. Image from skypix photography
COMBINATION CLOUDS
Clouds like to get together, forming combinations of stratus and cumulus, keeping the properties of both.
Stratocumulus (weather nerds pronounce as 'strato-cu') is often seen in Melbourne - our mostly cloudy days, with the odd drizzly shower underneath. Altocumulus altostratus (weather nerds pronounce as 'ack as') is the mid level version of this, and let us take the rain parts of altostratus, and embed heavier showers inside to make even more rain.
Stratocumulus as a grey sheet with lumpy bits - both types of cloud coming together to create a fairly grey day. Photo by cloud-maven.com
HIGH CLOUDS
Cirrus are the ones right at the top, not attached to any cloud below them. Made of ice crystals, they don't produce any wet weather.
Cirrus are the wispy clouds or long streaks, cirrocumulus are small and rippled (and look amazing at sunrise/sunset), and cirrostratus are sheets of the wispy cloud, forming halos around the sun and moon.
Cirrus won't rain on us, but they can let us know that rain is on the way. Winds are strongest at that cloud level, so they are pushed here first, before the rest of the cloud associated with the weather system.
Cirrus cloud in Swifts Creek, Victoria. Photo by Fir0002/Flagstaffotos
These are the ten basic types, but that's just skimming the surface. The variations on these are endless, ranging from cumulus humilis and cumulus mediocris (that don't sound very impressive) to altocumulus stratiformis translucidus undulatus!
