A cloudburst is an extreme form of production of liquid water from a supersaturated mixture of air and water vapour in the atmosphere. Supersaturation in the vapour phase is related to the surface tension of liquids through the Kelvin equation, the Gibbs–Thomson effect and the Poynting effect.
The International Association for the Properties of Water and Steam (IAPWS) provides a special equation for the Gibbs free energy in the metastable-vapor region of water in its Revised Release on the IAPWS Industrial Formulation 1997 for the Thermodynamic Properties of Water and Steam. All thermodynamic properties for the metastable-vapor region of water can be derived from this equation by means of the appropriate relations of thermodynamic properties to the Gibbs free energy.