Clouds

Clouds

看云识天气

Look up at the sky. Do you see white or gray shapes moving across it? Those are clouds.

仰望天空，你看到一些白色或灰色的东西飘过吗?那就是云。

Most clouds are too far away to feel. You can only look at them. But there's one kind of cloud you can feel standing onthe ground. That is fog. It's the lowest kind of cloud.

大部分的云是这么遥不可及，你只能仰望着它们。 但有一种云，站在地面就可以接触到，那就是雾。雾是最贴近我们的一种云。

You can learn a lot from looking at clouds. Theshape of clouds and whether they are dark or brightcan tell you how high they are and what kind ofweather they will bring. All clouds are made of water and particles of dusttoo small to see.

通过观察云，你能了解许多天气状况。云的形状，是乌黑的还是明亮的······ 这些都能告诉你，它们有多高，将带来什么样的天气。 所有的云都由水滴和肉眼无法看见的微小尘埃凝结而成。

The highest clouds are six to nine kilometersup in the sky. That is three to four miles high.It's so cold up there that all the water inthose clouds freezes and becomes tinycrystals of ice. There are three kinds of clouds high up inthe atmosphere: cirrus clouds, cirrostratusclouds, and cirrocumulus clouds. The beginning of a cloud's name tellshow high up it is. The next part tells whatshape it is.

最高的云叫做高云，飘浮在六千米至九千米的高空中，那儿温度很低，云层里的水滴和都凝结成小颗粒的冰晶。 高云分成三种:卷云、卷层云和卷积云。从云的名字可以看出它所在的高度和形状。

Cirrus clouds are hardly there. They look like wispywhite feathers trailing across blue sky. They mean sunny weather with no rain. They are far apart and let the sun shine on the earth. Cirrostratus clouds can cover the whole sky. They tellus that it may rain or snow in twelve to twenty-fourhours."Stratus" means clouds that are flat and spreadout like a blanket.

卷云不常有，看起来就像是划过蓝天的稀疏的羽毛。 看到卷云，表示天气晴朗无雨。卷云与地表相距很远，这样，闪亮的太阳才能照射在地面上。 卷层云能覆盖整片天空，这告诉我们，未来十二至二十四小时内将会出现雨雪天气。 层云，就是像展开的毯子一样扁平的云。