6/14/2023 0 Comments Raindrop meter![]() ![]() Several years ago, scientists reported seeing small drops falling faster than their predicted terminal velocity. Smaller drops fall more slowly - less than 1 meter (3.3 feet) per second. Raindrops larger across than 0.5 millimeter (0.02 inch) fall with a terminal velocity of several meters (feet) per second. (Velocity is a measurement of how fast and in which direction an object moves.) Every object falling through the atmosphere, from skydivers to hailstones, has a terminal velocity. Eventually, these upward and downward forces cancel out, and the drop should maintain a constant speed: its terminal velocity. A drop’s one-way ride begins when it becomes heavy enough that gravity pulls it toward the ground. ![]() However, he adds, “If our guesses are wrong as to how fast these drops are falling, that could ultimately affect a whole bunch of other work.” The puzzleĪ raindrop’s size grows inside a cloud. “If you’re going to understand rain, you need to make guesses,” he says. So the existence of fast-fallers suggests that rainfall estimates could be distorted, Larsen told Science News. These estimates help determine how much rain a storm deposits over an area. That’s why meteorologists often use terminal velocity to estimate the size of raindrops, he says. Bigger raindrops have a faster maximum speed than smaller ones. Michael Larsen is an atmospheric physicist at the College of Charleston in South Carolina. Yet scientists have observed raindrops plummeting faster than their terminal velocity. This should be the top speed at which a droplet can move. That means the drop stops speeding up and keeps falling at a steady rate. They have been caught breaking the speed limit.Ī falling object reaches what’s known as its terminal velocity when friction - the slowing force of air - cancels the downward pull of gravity. Some of those tiny raindrops that keep falling on your head may be outlaws, of a sort. ![]()
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