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Meteorology; or Weather Explained

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<h2>CHAPTER XI</h2> IT ALWAYS RAINS All are familiar with the answer given by the native of Skye to the irate tourist on that island, who, for the sixth day drenched, asked the question: “Does it always rain here?” “Na!” answered the workman, without at all understanding the joke; “feiles it snaas” (sometimes it snows). Yet, strange to say, the tourist’s question has been answered in the affirmative in every place where a cloud is overhead, visible or invisible. Whenever a cloud is formed, it begins to rain; and the drops shower down in immense numbers, though most minute in size—“the playful fancies of the mighty sky.” No doubt it is only in certain circumstances that these drops are attracted together so as to form large drops, which fall to the earth in genial showers to refresh the thirsty soil, or in a terrible deluge to cause great destruction. But when the temperature and pressure are not suitable for the formation of what we commonly know as the rain, the fine drops fall into the air under the cloud, where they immediately evaporate from their dust free-surfaces, if the air is dry and warm. This is, in other words, the decay of clouds. It is a curious fact that objects in a fog may not be wetted, when the number of water-particles is great. It seems that these water-particles all evaporate so quickly that even one’s hand or face is not sensible of being wetted. The particles are minutely small; and they may evaporate even before reaching the warm skin, by reason of the heated air over the skin. There is a peculiarly warm sensation in the centre of a cumulus cloud, especially when it is not dense. A glow of heat seems to radiate from all points. Yet the face and hands are quite dry, and exposed objects are not wetted; but it is really always raining. That is a curious discovery. It is radiant heat that is the cause of the remarkable result. The rays of the sun, which strike the upper part of the cloud, not only heat that surface but also penetrate the cloud and fall on the surface of bodies within, generating heat there. These heated surfaces again radiate heat into the air attached to them. This warm air receives the fine raindrops in the cloud, and dissolves the moisture from the dust-particles before the moisture can reach the surfaces exposed. That a vast amount of radiant heat rushes through a cloud is clearly shown by exposing a thermometer with black bulb in vacuo. On some occasions, a thermometer would indicate from 40° to 50° above the temperature of the air, thus proving the surface to be quite dry. These observations have been corroborated on Mount Pilatus, near Lucerne—1000 feet higher and more isolated than the Rigi. The summit was quite enveloped in cloud, and, though one might naturally conclude that the air was dense with moisture, yet the wooden seats, walls, and all exposed surfaces were quite dry. Strange to say, however, the thermometers hung up got wet rapidly, and the pins driven into the wooden post to support them rapidly became moist. A thermometer lying on a wooden seat stood at 60°, while one hung up read only 48°. This difference was caused by radiant heat. It is well known that, when bodies are exposed to radiant heat, they are heated in proportion to their size; the smaller, then, may be moist, when the larger are dry by radiation. The effect of the sun’s penetrating heat through the cloud is to heat exposed objects above the temperature of the air; and if the objects are of any size they are considerably heated, and retain their heat more, while at the same time around them is a layer of warm air which is quite sufficient to force the water-vapour to leave the dust-particles in the fine rain. Hence seats, walls, posts, &c., are quite dry, though they are in the middle of a cloud. They are large enough to throw off the moisture by the retained heat, or by the large amount of surrounding heat; whereas, small bodies, which are not heated to the same degree and cannot therefore retain their heat so easily, have not heat-power sufficient to withstand the moisture, and they become wetted. Hence, by the radiant heat, the large exposed objects are dry in the cloud; whereas small objects are damp, and, in some cases, dripping with wet. The fact is, then, that whenever a cloud overhangs, rain is falling, though it may not reach the earth on account of the dryness of the stratum of air below the cloud, and the heat of the air over the earth. So that on a summer day, with the gold-fringed, fleecy clouds sailing overhead, it is really raining; but the drops, being very small, evaporate long before reaching the earth. As Ariel sings at the end of “The Tempest” of Shakespeare, “The rain, it raineth every day.” It rains, but much of the melting of the clouds is reproduced by a wonderful circularity—the moisture evaporating, seizing other dust-particles, forming cloud-particles, falling again, and so on ad infinitum, during the existing circumstances.     <hr style="width: 50%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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