ShareThe Water Cycle - It's Raining, It's Pouring!
As Dewey's "Big Adventure"
continues, we find him high in the sky. So far Dewey has gone through quite
a few changes. We first visited him in the ocean where he had lived for
many years. One day he left his tropical home and floated high into the
sky. Dewey had changed from water to water vapor. Soonafter his journey upward began, he ran
into Dusty and changed back into water. He then became part of a cloud.
What will happen to Dewey next? Well, you probably already know, don't you?
As the story goes, Dewey wasn't the only water molecule in the sky. There
were many more. Trillions of water molecules formed Dewey’s cloud.
And this cloud was on the move. The wind was blowing from the south. Dewey
was off on a new adventure.
THE FALL!
Dewey looked around him. He almost felt back at home. Everywhere he looked
he saw other water molecules. It was very crowded. As more molecules joined
Dewey and Dusty the more crowded their group became. The more this happened,
the heavier Dewey and his friends were. And then it happened. Oh no, before
he could yell "Look out below!" he was falling. Dewey had finally
become a drop. It was raining, pouring and somewhere he was sure an "old
man was snoring."
Have you ever wondered what makes the rain fall from the sky? Just how does Dewey become a drop and fall to Earth? When water droplets like Dewey join together they grow larger. When water droplets get big enough, gravity causes them to fall from clouds as rain, snow, hail or sleet. The type of precipitation that falls is determined by the air’s temperature.
Rain, rain, go away! Come again some other day.
You have probably heard this phrase before. But should
we really want rain to go away? Remember, most of Utah is a desert. We
need the water. And there is another reason that we wouldn't want the
rain to go away. Rain, and other types of precipitation are important
parts of the water cycle. If there were no
rain, there would be no rivers, lakes or streams. There would be no fishing
in the Uintahs, no water skiing at Bear Lake and no skiing in the Wasatch
Mountains. Sometimes rain is inconvenient, but we definitely do want and
need rain.
You know that water cannot condense and fall back to Earth if it does not have anything on which to collect. Have you noticed the dust in the air when the sun shines through your window? This is in the air we breath? These are like the particles high in the air on which water condenses.
