Bindu PKnowledge Contributor
Why is dew drops not formed on cloudy nights?
Why is dew drops not formed on cloudy nights?
Sign Up to our social questions and Answers Engine to ask questions, answer people’s questions, and connect with other people.
Login to our social questions & Answers Engine to ask questions answer people’s questions & connect with other people.
Lost your password? Please enter your email address. You will receive a link and will create a new password via email.
Please briefly explain why you feel this question should be reported.
Please briefly explain why you feel this answer should be reported.
Please briefly explain why you feel this user should be reported.
Questions | Answers | Discussions | Knowledge sharing | Communities & more.
Dew drops are not formed on cloudy nights because clouds trap heat, preventing surface temperatures from dropping low enough to reach the dew point. This lack of radiational cooling means that surfaces do not cool sufficiently for condensation to occur, despite potentially high humidity levels. As a result, the conditions necessary for dew formation are not met on cloudy nights.
When the moisture is deposited in the form of water droplets on cooler surfaces of solid objects (rather than nuclei in air above the surface) such as stones, grass blades and plant leaves, it is known as dew.
The ideal conditions for its formation are
clear sky, calm air, high relative humidity, and
cold and long night.
For the formation of dew, it is necessary that the dew point is above the freezing point.
When the sky is clear and the trees and plants are cooler at nights, there is more evaporation of water and hence more dew.
When sky is cloudy, the trees and plants do not get cool in the night and hence there is less dew formation because on a cloudy night, the clouds send the heat (earth’s radiation) back to the ground so the ground never gets cold enough for the dew to be formed.