Few things seem to represent the quality of weightlessness than a big, fluffy cloud. Looks can be deceiving, however. That seemingly-light-weight object overhead weighs a whole lot more than you might imagine.

Clouds consist primarily of water droplets. By itself, a water droplet’s weight may not be much; some water droplets are so small that it would take a million of them to make up a single raindrop. Added together, however, these droplets really start to pack on the pounds. 

Remember that water is one of the heavier substances on earth. One gallon weighs 8.35 pounds. A cubic foot of water tips the scales at 62.43 pounds. You can imagine how many droplets have to be present to make up the 131,736 gallons in an average cumulus cloud!

So, how much does that “weightless” cotton-like bundle of fluffiness over your head weigh? The average cumulus cloud weighs 1.1 million pounds. That’s approximately equal to the weight of 100 elephants.