The individual cloud elements, which cover more than 5 degrees of arc each, can connect with each other and are sometimes arranged in a regular pattern.

In subtropics, they cover the edges of the horse latitude climatological highs, and reduce the amount of solar energy absorbed in the ocean.

'Dull weather' is a common expression incorporated with overcast stratocumulus days, which usually occur either in a warm sector between a warm and cold front in a depression, or in an area of high pressure, in the latter case, sometimes persisting over a specific area for several days.

However, these clouds are often seen at either the front or tail end of worse weather, so they may indicate storms to come, in the form of thunderheads or gusty winds.

[6] Stratocumulus Stratiformis are extensive flat but slightly lumpy sheets that show only minimal convective activity.

Stratocumulus Castellanus have stronger convective activity due to the presence of increasingly unstable air.

Any showers from stratocumulus castellanus are not usually as heavy as those from cumulus congestus.Stratocumulus Opacus is a dark layer of clouds covering entire sky without any break.

They form in the evening, when updrafts caused by convection decrease making cumulus clouds lose vertical development and spread horizontally.

They also can occur under altostratus cloud preceding a warm or occluded front, when cumulus usually lose vertical development as the sun's heat decreases.

During formation period, puffy tops of cumulus clouds can protrude from stratocumulus cumulogenitus for a relatively long time until they completely spread in horizontal direction.

Stratocumulus cumulogenitus appear as lengthy sheet or as group of separate elongated cloud rolls or waves.

[10] It was suggested that this finding could help explain past episodes of unusually rapid warming such as Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum[11] In 2020, further work from the same authors revealed that in their large eddy simulation, this tipping point cannot be stopped with solar radiation modification: in a hypothetical scenario where very high CO2 emissions continue for a long time but are offset with extensive solar radiation modification, the break-up of stratocumulus clouds is simply delayed until CO2 concentrations hit 1,700 ppm, at which point it would still cause around 5 °C (9.0 °F) of unavoidable warming.