I Wonder Why – Why The Rain Comes In Drops And Not A Stream?

Why does rain come in drops and not in a continuous stream?

● Warm air turns the water from rivers, lakes, and oceans into water vapour that

rises into the air. That water vapour forms clouds, which contain small drops of

water or ice crystals.

● As clouds rise higher and higher, the air gets colder and colder. When the water

vapour in the cloud becomes too heavy, it falls back to the ground as rain or snow.

● Rain is restricted to drops of water that fall from a cloud. They have a typically

diameter of at least 0.5 mm.

● The larger the cloud droplet the better the chance of its colliding with a giant

droplet. So each drop falls at a different speed as their sizes are different. There

are collisions between raindrops. Some collisions cause drops to coalesce,

forming a large drop and some cause drops to break into smaller ones. As the

As a number of drops grow the intensity of rain increases.