Time is right for rain query: Walk or run?
By JEREMY MEYER THE GAZETTE
It’s not a question Coloradans get to consider much, but with rain predicted throughout the weekend it’s something everyone outside without an umbrella could be forced to consider. Do people stay drier if they run through the rain or if they walk? Believe it or not, the matter has been considered for years by the science world, and at least one Canadian physicist developed a theory and a Web site to explain it. The bottom line: Run, don’t walk. “It’s pretty much a no-brainer,” said Doug Craigen, the Winnipeg, Manitoba, physicist who developed calculations that looked specifically at the walk-versus-run issue. “If you run, you won’t get that wet,” Craigen said. “You get wet faster when you’re running, but you’re in it for less time.” Two scientists from North Carolina took the test outdoors, specifically to the Appalachian Mountains during a 1996 summer rainstorm. Trevor Wallis and Thomas Peterson, runners and research meteorologists with the National Climatic Center in Asheville, N.C., donned cotton sweatsuits and hats and headed into the rain.
Wallis ran around the 100-meter loop in their office parking lot. Peterson walked. They then weighed their clothes, finding the walker’s sweatsuit was 40 percent wetter. The hats were the key, because the walker’s head gets wetter than the runner’s. Walkers get hit with more rain from above, which runners somewhat avoid. In other words, “The less time you are out and the faster you go, the better,” he said. Peterson and Wallis published their research in a British weather journal. It won them a research award and landed them a spot on the Discovery Channel show, “Mythbusters.” Reporters call and question them every year about the rain and whether they should run or walk. The same thing happens to Craigen, who added that a person’s body shape makes a big difference in how wet they’ll get. A skinny person provides a slimmer target for the rain. They won’t get as wet as a larger person, who has more girth and is more of a target. Craigen’s Web site asks people to fill in dimensions of their body types — their height and width between their shoulders. It asks how fast they’ll run, the speed of the rain and the slant at which it is falling. It then plugs these numbers into a calculation that figures how much rain will hit you and what part of your body will get soaked. His site gets hundreds and sometimes thousands of hits. Now, the question, what does he do when it rains? “A brisk walk.” CONTACT THE WRITER: 476-1623 or jmeyer@gazette.com UPCOMING WEATHER The strong, damp weather system that dumped more than half an inch of rain across El Paso County Wednesday and Thursday will linger through the weekend, delivering rain or even snow Easter Sunday. The National Weather Service’s forecast calls for rain showers to start this afternoon and continue overnight, possibly turning into snow. The rain and snow showers might taper off Sunday, but the Easter holiday is expected to be cloudy, with temperatures in the 30s or 40s and a chance for more rain, the weather service reported. Thursday’s foggy weather didn’t present many problems at the Colorado Springs Airport, where most flights were on time. Several flights had minor delays Thursday morning, spokeswoman Erica Hupp said.
c Craigen’s Web site: www.dctech. com/physics/ features/0600.php
