We always have the common thought that larger raindrops fall faster than smaller raindrops, as they have a greater terminal speed. Talking about the terminal speed, it’s the speed when the downward force of gravity is same as the upward air resistance.

In order to proof it’s wrong, two physicists, professors Alexander Kostinski and Raymond Shaw from Michigan Technological University, co-authored with Guillermo Montero-Martinez and Fernando Garcia-Garcia at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, have already discovered that the common sense about the raindrops are wrong!

The fantastic four have performed the research, by gathering rainfalls data at the Mexico City campus of the National University of Mexico. During the three years research, they’ve gathered more than 64,000 raindrops using optical array spectrometer probes and a particle analysis.

After long and detailed experiments, they’ve made the conclusion that some smaller raindrops can fall faster than bigger ones. To be honest, these small raindrops have the ability to fall faster than their terminal speed. This means, they have the momentum to fall incredibly faster than drops that size and weight are supposed to be able to fall.

“We need to first understand the rain formation processes and be able to calculate the amount of rain, before we want to forecast weather or rain accurately,” said Mr. Shaw.

It seems that the weathermen have always been overestimating the amount of raindrops in the weather forecast. [sciencedaily]

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