Tonight our little league play-off game suffered a rain-out. After a full day of pleasant weather and blue sky, rain showed up at dinner time. It’s not the first time in my life that rain showed up at game time and then checked out after the game was cancelled.
So the question I once knew the technical answer to popped up into my mind again. Why does it rain at the dinner hour, what causes rain to finally burst down upon us between the hours of
Some rain is caused by high air pressure; some rain is caused by low air pressure. It’s like you can’t win. One of them is going to cause the clouds to dump on you. In short you need three ingredients for rain:
1. Moisture
2. Unstable Air
3. Lift
These three elements come together at dinner for a reason. I’ll get to that next.
Convection Rain from Low Air Pressure – the evening rain
Warm ground + low pressure = rain
These are the short showers that show up, ruin your game and are out of here right after everyone has agreed the games are cancelled and have driven off home; and yes the sun comes out wouldn’t ya know it!
Why it happens is simple and unavoidable. The sun takes the whole day to warm the surface of the earth. That warmth of the earth warms the air. That warm air rises up to the clouds and meets the cold air. Bang, the rain dumps on us. ... more »
