Well, the prediction is for rain (grumble grumble ... even though we need it), so if the weather is too bad, or the ground is too wet, we can sit around the Quagg living room, eat our snacks, and watch a DVD of The Thin Man.

So let's talk about rain. Sure, it's wet and can be nasty, but it can be fascinating too. Have you ever thought of the sheer number of raindrops that can be falling through the air at one time? One theory posits that in order to precipitate out from the super-saturated air, an impurity must serve as a "seed" for the drop. So in really clean air, it can't rain. Then again, another theory suggests that droplets form when ice crystalizes out of humid clouds, and serves as a seed for moisture to condense around. Evidently, water droplets swirl around in the turbulent air, colliding and forming bigger droplets, before getting heavy enough to fall -- the typical drop has spent ten hours floating around before falling! When it rains, only a small percentage of the water in any given cloud turns into rain. Still, even a small cloud (200 meter radius) has around 7 million gallons of water in it.

So there you have it.

" The sea all water, yet receives rain still
And in abundance addeth to his store" -- Shakespeare

Phone in comments to 310.210.3347, meil 'em to the postal address skillfully concealed elsewhere on this page, or email 'em to samuelg@themeander.org

• "The Thin Man" by W.S. Van Dyke / Dashiell Hammett

All misspellings, misattributions, omissions or errors in naming should be construed as Acts of God, directed through yours truly (for reasons at which we as mere mortals may only guess...)