What makes it rain, and where does rain come from?
Rain's Big Trip
What makes it rain, and where does rain come from?
Look up. That gray cloud about to drip on your picnic is hiding a secret: every raindrop in it used to be something else, somewhere else, doing something completely different. The story of rain is really the story of water that never stops traveling.
It starts with the Sun, the engine of the whole show. Sunlight beats down on oceans, lakes, puddles, even the damp soil — and warms the water until the fastest little water bits break free and float up as invisible gas. We call this evaporation. The water hasn't vanished; it's just gone undercover.
