Stratus cloud a region. Some call these clouds "high fog" for the fog-like cloud. While light rain may fall, this cloud does not indicate much meteorological activity. Stratus clouds form when a sheet of warm, moist air lifts off the ground and depressurizes, following the lapse rate. This causes the relative humidity to increase due to the adiabatic cooling. Stratus clouds look like featureless gray to white sheets of cloud. They can be composed of water droplets, supercooled water droplets, or ice crystals depending upon the ambient temperature. Stratus nebulosus clouds appear as a featureless or nebulous veil or layer of stratus
Altostratus cloud nimbostratus. Altostratus most often takes the form of a featureless sheet of cloud but can be wavy (undulatus) as a result of wind shear through the cloud. It can also be fragmented (fibratus) with clear sky visible, which often the approach of a weakened or upper level warm front. Altostratus can be composed of ice crystals. In some ice crystal altostratus, very thin, rapidly disappearing horizontal sheets of water droplets appear at random. The sizes of the ice crystals in the cloud tended to increase as altitude decreased. However, close to the bottom of the cloud, the particles decreased in