Slipping into a warm, cozy bed while a thunderstorm rages outside.
Nothing soothes me and puts me in the right mood like a roaring thunderstorm and torrential rain~ When I’m warm and cozy inside and not drenched in rain that is. It just makes me feel so… safe and relaxed you know? Also, it’s perfect weather for napping, reading, gaming, snuggling, or whatever else 🙂
Every night, just before I fall asleep, I make a small wish that I will have sweet dreams tonight. But I cannot help but wonder if I will wake up with a smile because it was pleasant, or if I will wake up with a sense of emptiness and sadness because it was a bittersweet dream that will never come true. In the end, I guess it does not matter, as those dreams will fade away, like tears in rain.
Walking on sunshine.
So I mentioned before the awesomeness of staying indoors while it’s pouring outside, but the opposite is still awesome. Nothing lifts your spirits as much as a clear blue sky and beautiful sunshine, with a hint of a cool breeze~ Luckily spring is properly settling in in NZ, just in time for holidays next week!
Of course this being Auckland, the weather is as fickle as a teenage girl. That bitch will rain on you with no notice. Like, there’s no point looking at a forecast because it will most likely be wrong for at least half the day. But I digress.
Here’s a photo around the place I live, showing off awesome spring weather 🙂
Let’s imagine that you are walking outside, when rain clouds catch you by surprise and suddenly pour down on you. Assuming that you have no umbrella or anything to cover yourself with, is it best to run back home or walk back? Or to elaborate, should you walk and spend more time in the rain, or should you run, which means you will run into rain sideways?
There are two ways you can get wet in the rain: it will either fall on top of your head, or you will run into it from the side. The amount of rain that falls on your head is constant whether you are walking or raining, as the entire field you are travelling through is full of raindrops. Therefore, one would naturally think that running would not add much benefit as you run into more rain by moving faster, as you essentially hit a wall of raindrops.
But this is not true. No matter how fast you travel, the amount of rain you hit sideways is constant. The only variable that affects the amount of rain you hit sideways is the distance you travel. This is because the amount of raindrops in the space between you and your destination is constant.
Summarising this, the wetness from rain you receive is:
(wetness falling on your head per second x time spent in rain) + (wetness you run into per meter x distance travelled).
Since you cannot really change how far you are from your destination, the best way to minimise getting wet is to run as fast as you can to minimise the time you spend in the rain.
Then again, this is only the most practical option to keep you dry. If you are feeling particularly romantic or blue, then feel free to stroll through the rain, savouring the cold drops on your face (or wallow in the sadness that is your life).
(Here’s a very good video explaining the maths/science of it all: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MqYE2UuN24)
What would happen if your nostrils were facing up instead of down? Rain would fall into your nose and when you were sad or with a cold, mucus would fill up in the nose instead of draining, creating quite a problem. Then why do we have two nostrils? The reason being, if one is blocked, we can breathe through the other (unless you have bad hay fever or a cold and both are blocked). This shows how (almost) every part of the human body has a purpose, including its shape and characteristics.
Another fun fact about nostrils is that at one moment, only one nostril is used for breathing. In other words, you can breathe easily through one side of your nose but the other side will feel stuffy and blocked. This phenomenon alternates sides on a periodic cycle (where the blocked side becomes clear and vice versa). This mechanism is most likely to protect the inside of your nose (nasal cavity) from drying out.
When the weather forecast says today will be sunny, it always seems to rain (and vice versa). In fact, according to a US study, forecasts are sometimes less accurate than flipping a coin. If not even professionals can accurately predict the weather, can ordinary people like you and I do it?
The key to this is observation. By carefully studying your surroundings, you can look in to the future.
There are many signs before rain comes. For example, if the sunset is unusually clear or if a mountain far away looks smaller or hazy then it is very likely that it will rain the next day. If you see a rainbow in the morning it suggests rain is coming from the west. On hot days without any wind, it is likely there will be a heavy shower.
Animals are also adept at telling the weather. Frogs crying, worms coming out and swallows flying low are all signs that the air is humid and rain is coming. Swallows are especially accurate, as they fly low to catch insects that cannot fly high due to the humidity weighing them down.
If you are at the beach and there is a swarm of jellyfish, avoid going out to sea. Jellyfish near the coastline is a premonition for a storm.
If a more accurate weather prediction is required, the most precise method is cloud observation. If you study them carefully they comprise three tiers, with some clouds rising vertically.
Clouds in the highest level
Clouds in the middle level
Clouds in the lowest level
Clouds that rise vertically
If you know how to observe and analyse cloud patterns, you can predict the weather even when stranded on a desert island.
