This difference of pressures tends to flatten the bottom part of the drop, i.e drive the water molecules from its top and center to the sides, thereby flattening the drop and increasing its horizontal diameter. The big drops that pelt down ferociously plummet through the air so fast that they create shape-deforming pressure differences around them. This causes the part near the bottom of the drop to develop excess pressure and therefore less pressure at the sides.Īlso Read: At What Point Do Clouds Become Heavy Enough To Rain? The larger size also results in a higher velocity. The weird shape of the larger drops is entirely due to the external forces acting on it, namely aerodynamic and gravitational ones. The size of the drops increases as they come closer to the Earth’s surface. Microphotograph of a raindrop.Īs the drops fall, they hit nearby drops and combine with them, thus making them larger. Micro-photographs of cloud and fog particles show that these drops are indistinguishable from perfect spheres. Small drops are spherical, but as they grow larger, they attain a hamburger bun shape. An isolated drop that isn’t distorted by external forces is pulled by its surface tension into a spherical shape. In the case of raindrops, the smallest area that can be achieved while falling is that of a sphere. The answer to that lies in a simple phenomenon known as surface tension, the attractive force exerted upon the surface molecules of a liquid by the molecules beneath, which tends to draw the surface molecules into the bulk of the liquid and makes the liquid assume the shape that has the least surface area. Now, you might be wondering why the drop is spherical. These results directly contradicts the age-old popular belief. If you increased it by 100 times or so, the larger version would resemble a hamburger bun. The results obtained by picturing a small drop (less than a millimeter in diameter) using-high speed photography shows that raindrops are almost perfect spheres. Meteorologists have known for years that an actual raindrop bears no resemblance to a teardrop. That many sources can’t be wrong, right? I mean, even Google is in on this! Weather icons used throughout the media are illustrative of this widespread fallacy, which is obvious if you do a simple Google search. Even teachers (including professors!) are actively perpetuating this urban myth. The weather forecasts on television depict raindrops as teardrops, which leads to common people being accidentally taught that raindrops have that shape.
Or at least, that’s what they’re made to think. Well, in this case, the people are 100% right. Around 99% of them would draw it like a shower of teardrops exiting the clouds. Ask a bunch of random people to draw a raindrop falling from the clouds. It’s common knowledge that a falling raindrop has a shape that resembles a teardrop. If the raindrop becomes too large in size, it splits in two and reacquires its original spherical shape. The size of the drops increases as they come closer to the Earth’s surface, and the larger size also results in a higher velocity. Meteorologists have known for years that an actual raindrop is almost perfect sphere, but the shape of the larger drops is due to external forces like aerodynamic and gravitational ones.
The popular belief that raindrops have the shape of teardrops is incorrect.
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