Atmospheric Convection & Cloud Formation Simulator

Atmosphere

Surface heating 6 °C

Relative humidity 70%

Wind speed 2 m/s

Updraft speed

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Cloud coverage

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Condensation alt.

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Parcels aloft

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How it works

Sun-warmed ground heats the air just above it. That parcel becomes less dense than its surroundings and accelerates upward as a thermal. As it rises it expands and cools at the dry adiabatic lapse rate — roughly 9.8 °C per kilometre — while the surrounding environment cools more slowly. The parcel keeps rising as long as it stays warmer than the air around it. Once its temperature drops to the local dew point, water vapour condenses into visible droplets: this altitude is the lifting condensation level (LCL), and it is exactly where the flat cloud base you see in real cumulus forms.

T(h) = T_surface − Γ·h        (Γ ≈ 9.8 °C/km, dry adiabatic)
LCL  ≈ 125·(T_surface − T_dew)  metres
T_dew ≈ T_surface − (100 − RH)/5
a_buoyancy ∝ (T_parcel − T_env(h))

Surface heating — how much warmer the ground-layer air is than its surroundings; stronger heating means faster, taller thermals and a higher updraft speed.
Relative humidity — sets how close the dew point sits to the surface temperature, which lowers the condensation altitude and thickens cloud cover as it rises.
Wind speed — advects rising and falling parcels sideways, tilting the convection column the way real wind shear tilts a thermal or a thunderstorm updraft.
Parcels that reach the top of the column fall back as cooled, saturated air (simplified rain), closing the convective loop that drives real cumulus cycles.

Real-world relevance: this rise–cool–condense–fall cycle is the basic engine behind cumulus clouds, thunderstorms and the diurnal convective boundary layer that forecasters track every afternoon.

Rising warm air Condensed cloud Cooled / falling air

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