It rained!
It finally rained! After what felt like a decade of Saharan conditions across the UK, it finally, finally, finally rained. Not just rained. God damn thunderstorms let their fury out all over the UK on Friday. People stood in the streets, staring vacantly up in the air, transfixed, having forgotten that it was possible for water drops to fall from the sky, since it had been so long since it had happened.
And one thing that really resonated was that rain smell. That glorious, musty aroma that hangs around in the air after the heavens have opened.
Did you know it actually has a name? It is called ‘petrichor’.
Word of the evening: petrichor – the unique smell of rain falling on scorched earth, after a long spell of hot weather.
— Susie Dent (@susie_dent) July 20, 2018
And it is actually caused by a chemical being released from dead soil.
The smell of the air after a storm is caused by Geosmin: A chemical released by dead soil bacteria.
Humans are hyper sensitive to it, capable of detecting at a concentration of 5 parts per trillion.
It's theorised in our evolutionary past this helped us seek out water.☔️⛈️
— James A Wong (@Botanygeek) July 27, 2018
Love that smell after rain in the summer? ☔️ Well, it actually has a name- it’s scent called petrichor. The last sentence may explain why we like it so much! I took these extracts from Wikipedia: https://t.co/QNieDIyf8Z #RAIN2018 #petrichor #rain pic.twitter.com/INccKWzmqF
— Owain Wyn Evans (@OwainWynEvans) July 26, 2018
Isn’t that interesting? Now, go and bore people with that information next time someone mentions it.
