RAINLESS THUNDERSTORMS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 65, 31 October 1911, Page 3

RAINLESS THUNDERSTORMS.

In a recent number of “Nature” a letter entitled “Rainless Thunderstorms” is published by John Aitken, of atmospheric dust fame. Inter alia, ho says;—

With regard to rainless thunderstorms, though no rain falls, is that a. proof that no rain has been formed? May not rain have fallen from the clouds, hut evaporated before reaching the earth? One sometimes secs after dry weather clouds passing overhead, from which rain scorns to bo falling, yet not a drop reaches the earth" If the thunder clouds lie high

and the lower air very dry, such as wo have lately experienced, wo can easily sec that raindrops will undergo evaporation while falling, and may be' dried up before reaching the earth; and as the horizontal direction of the movement of the thunder clouds is generally different from that of the lower air, the falling rain may not get a chance of saturating the lower air, even though the storm may continue some time.

“This is a theory,” writes Mr. IF. N. Hunt, Commonwealth Meteorologist, “I have held and voiced formally \ears past. In fact, it appears to mo Iho onl\ satisfactory explanation for variable quantities of rainfall falling from apparently identically recurring phases of atmospheric distribution, if subsequent investigation should prove the theory that dry substrata of air

absorb precipitation from the thun-der-clouds, extensive irrigation by moistening the air from the surface of the earth upwards would mitigate droughty periods.