1The two things you need
Rising air, and how size changes falling
Two simple ideas do all the work. Watch each one move:
Air keeps puffing up
Air isn't empty. Warm air near the ground rises, like a slow invisible fan blowing straight up. It pushes on anything light.
Size changes falling
Tiny things drift, big things drop. A speck of dust floats forever. A fat drop plummets. Same stuff — the size is what changes.
2The two kinds of water drop
A floater and a faller, side by side
A cloud is not "light water." It's water split into two very different sizes:
A tiny droplet
Smaller than a speck of flour. The gentle puff of rising air holds it up easily.
A fat raindrop
Hundreds of droplets clumped into one. Too heavy for the puff — it drops.
3Your turn — set the size
Drop one droplet into the rising air
The puff of air blows up at the same gentle speed the whole time. You only change one thing: how big the droplet is. Watch where it goes.
4Now grow the whole cloud
What if every droplet got bigger? 🌧️
Here's a whole cloud of tiny droplets, all floating. The rising air stays just as gentle. You're going to grow every droplet at once. But first — a guess.
Guess before you find out
You grow the droplets bigger and bigger while the puff of air stays the same gentle speed. What happens to the floating cloud?