ERIC Number: EJ1024951
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2013-Oct
Pages: 2
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0031-921X
EISSN: N/A
Is There a Maximum Size of Water Drops in Nature?
Vollmer, Michael; Mollmann, Klaus-Peter
Physics Teacher, v51 n7 p400-401 Oct 2013
In nature, water drops can have a large variety of sizes and shapes. Small droplets with diameters of the order of 5 to 10 µm are present in fog and clouds. This is not sufficiently large for gravity to dominate their behavior. In contrast, raindrops typically have sizes of the order of 1 mm, with observed maximum sizes in nature of around 5 mm in tropical rain showers. Electric fields in the atmosphere lead to the largest sizes. Raindrops in natural rain showers cannot reach arbitrarily large sizes. Which factors govern the maximum size of water drops?
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A