If a raindrop is less than 0.5mm in diameter, it’s drizzle – and if a drizzle particle is over 0.5mm, it’s a raindrop. That’s following the definitions of the National Weather Service Observing Handbook No. 8, Aviation Weather Observations for Supplementary Aviation Weather Reporting Stations (SAWRS), Manual Observations, October 1996. But quantifying drizzle is not […]
Tag: rain
Superfluous apologies – an easy-to-use tool for social influencers?
Superfluous Apologies have been defined as : “Expressions of regret for an undesirable circumstance that is clearly outside of one’s control.” That’s according to the Decision Processes Lab at the Operations, Information and Decisions Department, The Wharton School, The University of Pennsylvania, US, which has recently found, by experiment, that : “Superfluous apologies represent a […]
Diesel Trains May Expose Passengers to Exhaust [research study]
Passenger trains train a rain of exhaust on the passengers, if the trains burn diesel fuel and the passenger cars traipse dutifully behind the exhausting locomotive. Details are in this possibly-not-entirely-surprising study: “Exposure to ultrafine particles and black carbon in diesel-powered commuter trains,” Cheol-Heon Jeong, Alison Traub, Greg J. Evans, Atmospheric Environment, epub February 8, 2017. (Thanks […]
Rain, Cricket, Probability, Victory, and You
If you are fascinated by rain, cricket, probability and/or victory, give a glance to this study, which ties them all together: “Rain Rules for Limited Overs Cricket and Probabilities of Victory,” Ian Preston [pictured here] and Jonathan Thomas, The Statistician (Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series D), vol. 51, 2002, pp. 189-202. The authors, at […]
The sunshine-spreads-a-smile experiment
“[…] the effect of sunshine on one nonverbal expression that facilitates social relationships (namely, smiling) has never been studied.” Until now, that is. A new paper from professor Nicolas Guéguen at the Université de Bretagne-Sud, France describes a ‘Quasi Experiment’. “In a field experiment, men and women walking alone in the street were passed by […]
Nasal topsy-turvyism examined
More than one scientific investigator has examined the implications of misplaced facial attributes in drawings. [Example] But fewer have drawn attention to the implications of a facial attribute which actually is misplaced (rather than just in an illustration). What would happen for example, if one’s nose was upside down? This question was asked – and […]
Raincoat Non-Functionality in NZ
Raincoat (Noun) ‘A waterproof or water-resistant coat worn to protect the body from rain.’ (Definition at Wikipedia). If you buy a raincoat, you may reasonably expect it to keep out the rain. But you may be disappointed. Attention is drawn to the failings of raincoats in a recent Master of Philosophy thesis from Auckland University […]
More Weekend Rains, But Fewer Tornados & Hailstorms
In 1998 David M. Schultz [pictured here], then at the National Severe Storms Laboratory, Norman, Oklahoma, USA (and now at the University of Manchester, UK) published an article called “Does It Rain More Often on Weekends?” (Annals of Improbable Research, vol. 4, no. 2) . Schultz concluded that: there is perhaps some validity to the hypothesis that certain […]
Mudd on rain
Mudd weighs in on rain: “A Rain Splash Transport Equation Assimilating Field and Laboratory Measurements,” Thomas Dunne, Daniel V. Malmon, Simon M. Mudd, Journal of Geophysical Research, vol. 115, no. F1, F01001, 2010. (Thanks to Tom Gill for bringing this to our attention.) Mudd (pictured below) is at the University of Edinburgh.