How is rain formed?
We know from our previous segment that heating of air causes it to expand and rise. We also know that air contains moisture or water vapour. Moisture in the air is in the gaseous state and it slowly rises above along with the air molecules. As the moisture rises higher, it gets cooler and at a certain point, the water vapour condenses into a water droplet on the surface called the nucleus. The nucleus is nothing else but dust particles present in the atmosphere. These nuclei are also called as cloud seeds which will be surrounded by the water droplet.
Several such nuclei come together to form clouds. When billions of water droplets form a cloud, at a point the cloud becomes heavy as it has a lot of water in it. At this point, the cloud cannot hold the water anymore and these droplets begin to fall as rain on the earth.
Why do clouds appear white?
The sun is the main contributing factor as to why clouds often appear to be white. We know that clouds are composed of tiny water droplets. When the sunlight is scattered by the water droplets, all wavelengths of light scatter almost equally. Since there are millions of water droplets in the atmosphere, sunlight is scattered into various colours that combine to form the colour white, which gives clouds a white colour.
Scattering of light by water particles
 How are winds and rains interrelated?
Rains can be affected by wind patterns. It’s the winds that tell us about the rainfall. When winds move in from sea to land and carry clouds laden with water, it is bound to rain.
Sometimes a mountain blocks the winds which are carrying moisture-bearing clouds. In such a case the clouds will give rain only to one side of the mountain which we call the windward side. And the leeward side which is the other side will remain dry.
These examples clearly tell us how winds and rains are interconnected.
Windward and Leeward side
 Which are the types of monsoon rains in India?
Depending on the directions of the wind, India experiences two types of Monsoon rains:
- South-west monsoon rains
- North-east monsoon rains
Monsoons rains in India