[Last week you heard about my experience watching meteor showers aboard a destroyer escort in the Caribbean. Now, flash forward about 35 years. “Tonight is supposed to be the best night of the meteor showers,” she says. “Let’s stay up to watch them.”
“I have an even better idea,” says He … who then proceeds to haul out folding lounge chairs, sleeping bags, pillows, and maybe even a bottle of wine, and sets them up in the back yard, facing the Eastern sky. “Now we can watch the show in comfort and style!” he declares.
But it didn’t work out that way. They forgot about radiational cooling. During the day, the sun warms the land. Then, that night the air turns cool,and as it meets the rising warm air from the land, it creates moisture. The water vapor becomes droplets when it encounters a solid surface. At this point, it is called “dew,” and by two o’clock in the a.m. the two star-gazers were drenched with it. “I’m &*##!! soak and freezing. I’m going inside.”
“I’m right be*&%!!hind you,” her lover answers. And that’s Take 2 on the Perseid Meteor Showers which, in this case, turned into a backyard bath. SB SM]