Do You Know??

DO PEOPLE GET WETTER WHEN WALKING IN THE RAIN, 
OR, 
WHEN RUNNING IN THE RAIN?

The question of whether people will get wetter if they walk through the rain than if they run through it has been the subject of much bar room discussion. More than that, scientists have been considering the problem for many years, and have concluded that many factors can contribute to which method of progress exposes a person to more rain. Some factors are the speed and intensity of the rain, the build of the person, the direction and angle of the rain, and the distance traveled.

The main reason for the debate is the fact that raindrops generally hit both the head and the front of the body. It has been thought that because a runner will be in the rain for a shorter period than a walker will, fewer drops will hit his or her head, and this is a generally agreed-upon hypothesis. However, some believe that a runner will be hit with more drops on the front of the body because of his or her increased velocity when running. The balance of these two factors has been put to the test scientifically.

A number of experiments have been performed to determine the best way of keeping dry when moving in the rain, most of which have resulted in a running person ending up less wet than a walking person. While some experiments found that the number of drops per second that a runner received was the same as for a walker (because the runner was hit more on the front but less on the head), the runner was in the rain for a shorter period and so got hit with fewer drops overall. A number of experiments counting the actual number of drops that hit both a runner and a walker found that the runner received far fewer head drops, but that the front drops for the runner and walker were the same, which again resulted in the runner getting less wet.

In one experiment, the runner ended up getting 40 percent less wet, while in another this figure was reduced to 10 percent. A 1997 experiment found that running in a light rain with no wind resulted in the runner getting 16 percent less wet, while leaning forward and running fast in heavy rain being driven by wind resulted in the runner getting 44 percent less wet. On the basis of these experiments, it's possible to determine that running is always the best option, particularly in heavy rain.