This is when they will fall to the ground as rain, or maybe snow or hail due to the force of gravity. Once the rain has fallen, a lot of it goes into oceans, rivers , lakes and streams that will all eventually lead to our oceans.
Water stays in some places longer than others. A drop of water may spend over 3, years in the ocean before moving on to another part of the water cycle. On average a drop of water spends an average of 8 days in the atmosphere before falling back down to Earth.
The highest amount of rainfall ever recorded in one year was 1, inches in Cherrapunji, India. That is a lot of rain. Antarctica is the driest continent on Earth. Do you think rain is just water? For instance, eastern portions of North and South America, northern Europe, and northern and central Asia have become wetter. Other regions, such as the Sahel between the Sahara desert and the Sudanian Savanna , the Mediterranean, southern Africa and parts of southern Asia have become drier.
There has also been an increase in both the number of heavy rainstorms and droughts over many areas in the past century. In the tropics and subtropics, there has also been an increase in the prevalence of droughts since the s. Despite what you might think, Earth is not the only planet where rain occurs. On other bodies in the Solar System, liquid precipitation takes place, though it rarely involves water.
In fact, on Venus , rain regularly occurs, except that it involves sulfuric acid! Hence, the rain never reaches the surface, which is extremely dry and molten. As evidence provided by the Cassini-Huygens mission has indicated, the moon has an active hydrological cycle. As part of this cycle, liquid methane evaporates on the surface, accumulates in the atmosphere, and then returns to the surface as seasonal rains. But it gets weirder!
For instance, in recent years, scientists have obtained experimental evidence that indicates that Jupiter and Saturn may experience liquid helium rain. Due to the extreme pressure conditions that exist within the gas giants interior, these gases are compressed to the point where they take liquid form.
Essentially, Jupiter, Saturn , Uranus and Neptune all possess methane in their interiors. Due to the extreme pressure conditions, these hydrocarbons are compressed to the point that actual diamonds are believed to form. But what makes clouds? Water vapor turns into clouds when it cools and condenses—that is, turns back into liquid water or ice. In order to condense, the water vapor must have a solid to glom onto.
In the cloud, with more water condensing onto other water droplets, the droplets grow. When they get too heavy to stay suspended in the cloud, even with updrafts within the cloud, they fall to Earth as rain. However, if the layers of atmosphere within the cloud, and between the cloud and the ground, alternate between warmer than freezing and colder than freezing, you get other kinds of precipitation. It can go round and round, adding more and more layers of new ice.
If the updrafts in a thunder cloud are strong enough, the hail stones can get pretty big before they become too heavy to stay up. Hail stones can range from pea size to golf ball size, and up! A new record for the largest hailstone ever was set in ! It fell on July 23, in Vivian, South Dakota.
It was 8 inches in diameter, That could put a real dent in your day!
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