Rain, rain come my way...

What is it about rain that makes you feel lazy and energetic at the same time?

I love rainy days. One moment I just want to be inside, looking out, enjoying the falling droplets, seeing the trees and grass go greener, basking in the music that the rain make. Lovely. Next moment, I would want to run outside, my arms spread wide, enjoying the droplets falling on my face, basking in its coolness and fresh smelling earth. Wonderful.

Although this is the product of cloud-seeding, I enjoy 'em all the same. The below is taken from http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/nhurr97/CSEED.HTM.

"Seeding of tropical cumulus clouds, and indeed any clouds, requires that they contain supercooled water--that is, liquid water colder than zero Celsius. Introduction of a substance, such as silver iodide, that has a crystalline structure similar to that of ice will induce freezing. In mid-latitude clouds, the usual seeding strategy has been based upon the vapor pressure being lower over water than over ice. When ice particles form in supercooled clouds, they grow at the expense of liquid droplets and become heavy enough to fall as rain from clouds that otherwise would produce none.

Seeding of tropical cumuli sought to exploit the latent heat released by freezing as well. This strategy of "dynamic seeding" assumed that the additional latent heat would add buoyancy, strengthen the updrafts, ensure more low-level convergence, and ultimately cause explosive growth of properly selected cumuli.

The above sketch illustrates an aircraft dispensing pyrotechnics doped with silver iodide into a supercooled cloud that is invigorated by the latent heat released as the boundary between liquid and frozen hydrometeors (blue horizontal line in the cloud on the left) moves down to the zero Celsius isotherm (green horizontal line)."

Yahoo! gave a slightly detailed explanation...

"Static mode cloud seeding seeks to increase rainfall by adding ice crystals (usually in the form of silver iodide or dry ice) to cold clouds. Dynamic mode cloud seeding increases rainfall by enhancing "vertical air currents in clouds and thereby vertically process more water through the clouds." Basically, in this method of seeding, a much larger number of ice crystals are added to the cloud than in the static mode. In hygroscopic seeding, salt crystals are released into a cloud. These particles grow until they are large enough to cause precipitation to form. Clouds can be seeded from above with the help of airplanes that drop pyrotechnics, or from the ground by using artillery or ground-to-air rockets."

Whatever it is, it's still rain. And I enjoy it all the same...