Clouds are not water in liquid form at rest. It is many very small water vapour/particles separated by air in between. That being the case, you can think of it as small water beads, which has a different interaction with light.
This is similar to clear glass in a window that is transparent (like water in a pool), but hundreds of glass marbles side by side (like water vapour or steam) will not be transparent like that; the image behind will be distorted.
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