Cumulus clouds are big and fluffy.  

Clouds:

Look up into the sky on most days and you may see clouds. 

Clouds are made when air is cooled to a temperature where water in the air becomes visible. This temperature is called the dewpoint. 

Dust is also needed to form clouds.  

The water condenses on the tiny specs;  just like the mist in your bathroom condenses on your shower curtain.  

As you go higher in the atmosphere, the cooler the temperature gets.  

Sometimes clouds are formed because moist air is forced upward over mountains. 

Cumulus:

Big fluffy clouds are called cumulus and they can be in any part of the atmosphere.  

Special cumulus clouds which bring thunderstorms are called cumulonimbus. 

Cumulonimbus clouds are dark because their bases are low, but their tops can reach high up into the atmosphere.  

Rain can form in any part of a cumulonimbus cloud. Rain which does not reach the ground is called virga. .

Stratus:

Clouds that are flat and look like blankets in the sky are called stratus. 

Rain can also fall from stratus clouds. 

If rain is a steady drizzle which lasts for a while, it most likely comes from stratus clouds. 

Cirrus

Thin, wispy clouds are called cirrus and are usually high up in the atmosphere.  

They are made of ice crystals since the higher air is colder. There is not enough moisture in cirrus clouds to cause rain.  

You cannot have rain without clouds, and you cannot have rainbows without them either. 

Rain:

Precipitation in the form of rain or snow occurs when particles of water or ice are large enough to reach the ground.

The chief difference between a cloud drop and a rain drop is size. A typical rain drop has a volume that is more than a million times that of a cloud drop. Thus it takes many cloud droplets to make up a single raindrop.

When our atmosphere gets poluted we are suseptable to acid rain.

Snow in Antarctica
Actual Snowflake

Snow:

Snow has a chemical composition of water (H20)

Snow is basically made up of crystals of frozen water (ICE).) Snow is ice crystals and ice crystals have six points. However, one snowflake can consist of multiple crystals. Temperatures must be below freezing (0 Celsius or 32 Fahrenheit) for snow to form.

Snow continues to challenge weather experts. It is still very difficult to predict and is surprisingly hard to measure once it has fallen. Learn more about snow

Rainbows:

Rainbows are caused by sunlight passing through very small water drops.  

This is why you can make your own mini-rainbow with a garden hose if it has a fine spray.  

Planetterri says Don't shake it!Fault in the earth:

Kobe earthquake:

Earthquakes:

An earthquake is a shaking of the earth caused by pieces of the earth's crust that suddenly shift.

The crust (thin outer layer) is cold and brittle rock compared to the hot rock deeper inside. This crust is full of large and small cracks called faults. These faults can be hundreds of miles long, but it is hard for you to see them because they are buried deep underground. There are many earthquake "faults" or cracks in the earth that are prone to quakes such as the San Andreas Fault in the USA.

A sudden shift in the rock shakes all of the rock around it. These vibrations are called seismic waves which travel outward in all directions causing the earthquake. The underground location where the rock first shifts or breaks apart is called an EPICENTER.

Earthquakes can happen most anywhere. They can be so strong they can topple buildings and destroy whole cities. When there is a large quake, aftershocks, fires and tsunami are soon to follow.

There have been many famous Earthquakes in recent years such as the KOBE Earthquake, and the San Francisco Earthquake.

Go here to learn more about quakes and to track them

Check out the
Tsunami Reference
Center for more info

Tsunami Tidal waves created by a sudden disturbance in the ocean are known as tsunami. Typical causes are earthquakes , underwater landslides or an Asteroid hitting earth.

Tsunami generally travel very fast across the ocean (typically 500km/h or more). The tsunami height and depth may vary widely.

It is typical for multiple waves to result from one tsunami event and these could be several hours apart when they reach a distant shore. A series of very large waves can occur up to 90 minutes after a quake.

They tend to happen on famous trenches such as the Java Trench which is prone to Tsunamis. There are trenches in many other places on earth including Alaska and Japan, too.