Shape of Raindrops

Shape of Raindrops

You've seen on weather forecast in your television, in magazines, and even science books will show raindrops as tear shaped. The idea has persisted in popular culture, because often we see water drops from leafs, faucet, and also water rolling down our windows that does look like tear shape. This created a joint level of understanding among people that we think that even raindrops are tear shaped. It's time to teach our children new perspective of raindrops!

Scientist armed with high speed camera revealed that raindrops start out as round high in the atmosphere as water collects on dust and smoke particles in clouds. But as raindrops fall, they lose their rounded shape. Instead, a raindrop rather look like a bean or the top half of a hamburger bun. Flattened on the bottom and with a curved dome top, raindrops are anything but the classic tear shape. The reason is due to their speed falling through the atmosphere.

A raindrop falling through the atmosphere forms as a roughly spherical structure due to the surface tension of water. This surface tension is the "skin" of a body of water that makes the molecules stick together. The cause is the weak hydrogen bonds that occur between water molecules. On smaller raindrops, the surface tension is stronger than in larger drops. The reason is the flow of air around the drop.

Air flow on the bottom of the water drop is greater than the airflow at the top. At the top, small air circulation disturbances create less air pressure. Therefore, the surface tension at the top of the raindrop wins this round! In other words, the surface tension at the top allows the raindrop to remain more spherical while the bottom gets more flattened out.

Even as a raindrop is falling, it will often collide with other raindrops and increase in size. Once the size of a raindrop gets too large, it will eventually break apart in the atmosphere back into smaller drops. This time, the surface tension loses and the large raindrop ceases to exist. Instead it pulls apart when it grows to around 4 millimeters or more.

Source : http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/raindropshape.html"> USGS Site

Two Raindrops

Two little raindrops were born in a shower,
And one was so pompously proud of his power,
He got in his head an extravagant notion
He'd hustle right off and swallow the ocean.
A blade of grass that grew by the brook
Called for a drink, but no notice he took
Of such trifling things. He must hurry to be
Not a mere raindrop, but the whole sea.
A stranded ship needed water to float,
But he could not bother to help a boat.
He leaped in the sea with a puff and a blare -
And nobody even knew he was there!

But the other drop as along it went
Found the work to do for which it was sent:
It refreshed the lily that drooped its head,
And bathed the grass that was almost dead.
It got under the ships and helped them along,
And all the while sang a cheerful song.
It worked every step of the way it went,
Bringing joy to others, to itself content.
At last it came to its journey's end,
And welcomed the sea as an old-time friend.
"An ocean," it said, "there could not be
Except for the millions of drops like me."

The Rain

The rain came down as a fine drizzle

The rain came down and turned the meadow
A lush colour of green

The rain came down in torrents and the streams,
burns, rivers were filled to bursting point

The rain came down like a monsoon
And everything was wet

The flowers and plants grew and bloomed

After the rain subsided
A rainbow added colour to a dark broody sky

The Happy Raindrops

Way up in the sky, in a big, puffy, white cloud, the raindrops were waiting for a storm to happen, because their favorite thing in the world to do was to fall from the cloud and land on something with a splat!

One day, the puffy cloud began to get gray and much heavier. The raindrops knew this meant a storm was about to happen. When the lightning began to flash and when the thunder began to boom, all the raindrops got together for a big meeting. In this meeting they planned where each drop of rain was going to land. The biggest raindrop of all was called Randall. He got to choose first. Then, each in turn, according to size, chose a target, until the smallest raindrop had chosen.

"I think I will land on that man’s nose," Randall said, parting the cloud just a little bit to show everyone. He pointed to a man sitting on a bench in the park. The other raindrops giggled. "Here I go," Randall cried, then away he went, falling from the big gray could, through the stormy sky. He landed right in the middle of a man’s nose. He broke into pieces and went all over the man’s face, into his eyes and onto his lips.

The other raindrops shouted, "YEAH!"

"My turn," called Reese, the next largest raindrop. He had decided to land in a lady’s eye and smear her make-up. He jumped down through the small part in the cloud and landed with a kerplop right in her eye. Her make-up ran down her cheek and dropped onto her white blouse, making a mess.

Again, screams of delight echoed throughout the cloud. All the rest of the big raindrops took their turns, landing on dogs, people reading the newspaper and shiny cars that were pulling out of car washes. Soon, only the smallest drops were left. They were too small to do anything alone, so they divided up into groups.

The first group chose to rain on an ant’s nest. They all held hands and jumped down together. When they hit the nest, the dirt went flying everywhere. The carefully dug tunnels collapsed and the angry ants ran about trying to save their nest.

The next group of raindrops landed on a boy’s fluffy cotton candy. It dissolved into a sticky mess, leaving the small child crying.

"Let’s land on that woman," suggested the leader of the third group. "She just came out of the beauty parlor." The rest of them tee-heed and giggled, then they all held hands and jumped. Plop! Plop! Plop! They all landed on her nicely combed hair. The curls turned into soggy, limp ropes.

The raindrops all seemed to be enjoying themselves, except one small group. They were the smallest of all the raindrops. They didn’t like to do all those mean things. Rebecca was the biggest raindrop of the group. She said to the others, "Let’s have our group do something nice. Look down there for something that wants and needs us to rain on it."

They watched carefully. They saw a boy with a triple-decker ice cream cone. He didn’t need any rain. A family was in the park having a picnic. They didn’t want it to rain. There was also a beautiful wedding taking place and the raindrops knew that they didn’t want it to rain and ruin everything.

Rylee, the teeniest raindrop, spotted a little flower. It was a pretty yellow color, but was starting to turn brown around the edges. Its head was drooping. Rylee cried out to the others, "Rebecca, come and look. That little flower needs us."

The rest of them also looked down. That would be a nice thing to do. Rebecca said, "Let’s go!"

Just as they were about to jump, another group started to call them names. The biggest, Ryan, said, "All the rest of us are trying to make people cry and be angry. You aren’t like us. Hurry up and leave! Don’t come back to this cloud every again! We don’t like nice raindrops!"

The little raindrops jumped and landed softly on the limp yellow flower. Soon after, it lifted its head. Its stem turned green and the brown went away. The tiny raindrops were happy.

The storm broke and the rain stopped. The sun came out and dried up the rain. It turned to steam and floated back up into the sky to form new clouds. The small group that Rebecca and Rylee were in chose to form a new cloud where no mean raindrops were allowed. Every time they fell from the sky, they chose something that would be happy because they rained on it.

Precious Raindrops

Beautiful, precious rain drops,
Upon the window pane,
Comes a feeling of joy and gratitude,
To hear falling drops of rain.

The birds have stopped their singing,
And the grass turns green again,
The leaves upon the trees are washed,
In the summertime when it rains.

The earth seems to smile at the sun,
While the clouds go drifting by,
As thunder peals in the heavens above,
And lightning flashes on high.

What a gift from God in the heavens,
Who sends rain in time of need,
To water the earth and freshen it up,
Giving life to all, indeed.

Beautiful precious rain drops.
Upon the window pane,
Such a precious gift from above,
The Rain, The Rain, The Rain.

Raindrops Home

Welcome to Raindrops! Here I am sharing about me, who likes rains, who likes nature, who likes everything which is creation of God, who likes to see things colorful all over the world, who likes to walk on clouds, who likes to roam in forest, who likes to to see the sun rise and sun set every day, who likes colors of the sky.... After all.......... I am the "Raindrops......"