I took a walk today with my dad and the dogs. All of us need the exercise. My dad asked about the temperature before we left, to bring a coat if cold. I felt the air and it wasn't too bad, so I said, "Do not bring a coat." He didn't. But as we walked the air became increasingly humid and dark clouds loomed overhead. The wind picked up. And then the first few sprinkles fell, increasing to rain. We took shelter under a big maple tree, about 10 minutes from home, with the hope that we were experiencing an ephemeral shower. However, the wind and rain waxed. My dad decided we should just head home rather than wait, so we started walking, and the rain deluged us. He mentioned something about someone writing a Ph.D. on walking versus running in the rain, which I found hard to believe. (It's better to run, as shown by a simulation by Ken Holmes.) I felt bad for encouraging him to take a walk and then for him and the dogs to be rained upon, so I ran the rest of the way home and drove my pickup truck to haul them the last few blocks.
Posted by seander at June 7, 2004 01:57 AMThere's a pretty neat running vs. walking rain calculator available at http://www.dctech.com/physics/features/0600.php.
I saw an episode of "Mythbusters" on the Discovery Channel last year which seemed to suggest that running actually gets you wetter under the conditions they tested, though that goes against my intuition.
The results of Peterson and Wallis in their 1997 research paper "Running in the Rain" (published in the journal 'Weather') backs up the idea that walking makes you wetter; they seemed to use a better scientific procedure.
Posted by: David Koller at June 7, 2004 06:00 PM