# Walking versus running in the rain: You get wet the same?



## conscius (Apr 20, 2010)

So have a physics question I guess. Today it was raining cats and dogs...and frogs and horses and the whole animal kingdom. Stupid me did not check the weather when walked to go shopping so as I was leaving the mall I realized my mistake, no umbrella, no jacket, no hat, nothing. So started walking home with my bags and then as I got closer to my apartment started essentially jogging home. 

When I got home, I thought what a dumb thing I did, I just tired myself out, but I got wet just the same, seeing how limited time under the rain does not translate into less wetness. Per every second I ran through more raindrops this way, so end result is presumably the same. But then I thought what about the wind? Then I realized I know very little about physics so I thought I'll just ask the question here.


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## SirDave (Sep 1, 2012)

Consider walking between two covered shelters and the rain is falling at a rate of 1" per hour. The distance is, say 100 feet and the rate of travel is five miles per hour which would require 14 seconds of walking time. Running the 100 foot distance, at say 15 miles per hour would require only 4.5 seconds. A person exposed to 4.5 seconds of rain would, IMO, absorb 1/3 as much rain as a person spending 3 times longer under a constant amount of rain which person would obviously absorb 3 times as much.


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## Recede (Nov 23, 2011)

You don't need to know physics, just test it with an extreme example. What if you stood out in the rain for an hour before going inside? You'd certainly get more wet than if you immediately ran for shelter. Time does make a difference.


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## Leaf on the Wind (Dec 26, 2013)

Just watch this:







* *




Running works better.


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## HAL (May 10, 2014)

Edit: Having a rethink of my answer! Wait!


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## Notus Asphodelus (Jan 20, 2015)

The only issue I have with this is the simple fact that if you walk instead of run, you will be in the rain longer till you get to shelter. You might pick up more rain on the front while running, but at least you'll be out of it quicker.


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## Word Dispenser (May 18, 2012)

Running is better.


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## Scrabbletray (Apr 27, 2014)

The video describes it well. Running is better, but not THAT much better.


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## TheHiddenAngel (Mar 1, 2015)

It depends but honestly unless you're right near a shelter or some sort you're going to get pretty damp regardless.

Personally I would either bring an umbrella or just deal (and walk). It's just water after all.


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## FromTheWorldUp (Aug 30, 2010)

Mythbusters did an episode on this if you're really interested.


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## TheProphetLaLa (Aug 18, 2014)

I'm still going to run.


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## Roland Khan (May 10, 2009)

Only time it makes more sense to run than walk is if the distance is short enough to actually not allow enough rain to soak all the way through (ie. front door to driveway). If it's a fifteen minute walk and it's raining really hard, even if cut down to a five minute run, that's still plenty of time to get soaked all the way through to where at that point it matters not how much longer you take for going to be just as wet regardless for already reached "full soak". 

May as well just walk so others don't get the impression that you're afraid of water, and remain looking cool like a real badass that fears no water.erc2:


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## ientipi (Oct 17, 2013)

Running in the rain is just plain fun though so....I'm gonna keep on with the keepin on 


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## RobynC (Jun 10, 2011)

@_SirDave_

Well theoretically the same amount of rain comes down on you from top to bottom, however you'll traverse _through_ more rain (i.e front to back) on it's way down when you go faster.


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## SirDave (Sep 1, 2012)

RobynC said:


> @_SirDave_
> 
> Well theoretically the same amount of rain comes down on you from top to bottom, however you'll traverse _through_ more rain (i.e front to back) on it's way down when you go faster.


Nope; that defies logic since the amount of rainfall in any given event can be measured and is finite and limited. If one could run the entire distance between two covered structures in one second they would encounter only a second's rainfall. If the time spent walking between the two same covered structures was, say an hour, they would encounter an hours rainfall which roughly speaking would be 3,600 times as much water...


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## Alles_Paletti (May 15, 2013)

Hmm, thoughts:

Would theoretically be the same I guess if instead of the raindrop having speed, they'd just be floating in mid-air and no additional rain would be added from the top. 

Theoretically: You have a "front surface area" of 1m2

You walk through a corridor that is 1m high and 1 m wide. 

Every 1m of length there is one raindrop hanging in the middle of that 1m.

Say the corridor is 10m long, you'd hit 10 raindrops in total.

That is in the scenario that there are 0 raindrops per m2/second coming from above.

Now, say you have a top surface area of 1m2. 

One raindrop falls on every m2/second on average. 

That means if you spend 10 seconds in that corridor you catch 10 raindrops. If you spend 1 second, you catch one. 

Say walking = 10 seconds, running = 4 seconds, in this example you'd catch 20 raindrops when walking and 14 while running in total. 

However, when running you'd hit those raindrops from the front much faster. 

Running: 2,5 raindrops from the front per second + 1 raindrop from above per second = 3,5 raindrops/second
Walking: 1 raindrop from the front per second + 1 raindrop from above per second = 2 raindrops/second

With these theoretical values you'd get wetter fast when running but ultimately, get less wet.


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## Death Persuades (Feb 17, 2012)

The amount of rain drops falling is so high that it pretty much makes no difference.


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## conscius (Apr 20, 2010)

Just noticed this thread is still alive. You would think a simple question would have a simple answer but I guess like everything else it's complicated.



TheProphetLaLa said:


> I'm still going to run.


Oh yeah?! Well, I'll walk in SNOW!


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## RobynC (Jun 10, 2011)

@conscius

Actually some of the simplest questions have the most complex answers: "Why are we here?"


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## Morgoth (Sep 12, 2014)

I prefer singing in the rain myself.


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## aef8234 (Feb 18, 2012)

While running does make more surface area, exposure time is a lot shorter, so it's mostly better to run.


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## ficsci (May 4, 2011)

That depends on the rate of the water falling an how long you're out there for either walking or running. You can think of your body as having a maximum capcity of wetness (through absorbance in hair & clothes and how much water stick to your skin). If that maximum capacity is reached even when you run, then you can't get any wetter if you had just walked. At that point you should be more worried about getting dry & warm sooner than later. Unless you like that Notebook shit.


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## g_w (Apr 16, 2013)

RobynC said:


> @_SirDave_
> 
> Well theoretically the same amount of rain comes down on you from top to bottom, however you'll traverse _through_ more rain (i.e front to back) on it's way down when you go faster.


Trick question. More rain per unit time spent in the rain? Or more rain per unit distance traversed? :tongue:


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## g_w (Apr 16, 2013)

TheProphetLaLa said:


> I'm still going to run.


...or your mascara will. /dry> /secondary pun>


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## TheProphetLaLa (Aug 18, 2014)

g_w said:


> ...or your mascara will. /dry> /secondary pun>


Waterproof mascara my friend. I'm always prepared.


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## Dabbling (Nov 2, 2013)

g_w said:


> ...or your mascara will. /dry> /secondary pun>


Dry mascara...in the Sahara... :laughing:

Secondary puns...sounds like a second order term of buns in a series...watch your hairpin turns, there...

(you're so sharp you'll cut yourself...)

:laughing: rocrastinating: :laughing: :kitteh:


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## g_w (Apr 16, 2013)

Dabbling said:


> Dry mascara...in the Sahara... :laughing:
> 
> Secondary puns...sounds like a second order term of buns in a series...watch your hairpin turns, there...
> 
> ...


Could be worse. I'm helping take up carpet in a storage area under the stairs leading to the basement: then scraping of the
padding which was glued to the cement floor. (Citrus based solvent fortunately is able to dissolve the contractor's glue.)


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## ae1905 (Jun 7, 2014)

conscius said:


> So have a physics question I guess. Today it was raining cats and dogs...and frogs and horses and the whole animal kingdom. Stupid me did not check the weather when walked to go shopping so as I was leaving the mall I realized my mistake, no umbrella, no jacket, no hat, nothing. So started walking home with my bags and then as I got closer to my apartment started essentially jogging home. When I got home, I thought what a dumb thing I did, I just tired myself out, but I got wet just the same, seeing how limited time under the rain does not translate into less wetness. Per every second I ran through more raindrops this way, so end result is presumably the same. But then I thought what about the wind? Then I realized I know very little about physics so I thought I'll just ask the question here.


You'll stay drier the faster you move. To see this, consider the two extreme cases, one where you travel instantaneously to shelter, and the other where you travel infinitesimally slowly (effectively standing still). In the latter case, you will be hit by an infinite amount of rain since you will never reach shelter (except in the limit as time approaches infinity). In the former case, you will be hit by the amount of rain contained in the volume your bady sweeps out between your starting and end points, and that is a finite volume. Of course, you can't travel at infinite speed, but any actual speeds you might move at will lie between these two extremes. Put simply, the less time you spend in the rain, the drier you'll be.

(This is actually just a geometry problem that can be reduced to a two-dimensional calculation of the area occupied by all the rain drops that will fall on you. (You can disregard the third dimension represented by the width of your body (shoulder-to-shoulder) since this is a constant.) The smallest area is the rectangle formed by your height and the distance to shelter. The largest area is the infinitely tall rectangle formed by the depth of your body (front to back). These correspond to the two cases above of infinite and infinitesimal speeds, respectively. Between these extremes lie the infinite number of quadrilaterals corresponding to finite, non-zero speeds. It can easily be demonstrated the areas of these quadrilatreals depend directly on the time taken to move to shelter, and fall between the areas swept out in the extreme cases--ie, the faster you move, the smaller the area you will sweep out and the drier you will be.


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## Fredward (Sep 21, 2013)

You should dance towards shelter. It's faster than walking but more elegant than running, it lets both the rain and the world at large know that everything really just exists for you.

Seriously though I've never understood why people punt themselves out of the rain like they're about to melt. Unless they have to be somewhere important or it's a really bad rain that can actually damage your shit if you stay under it.


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## DudeGuy (Aug 5, 2013)

Less wet: Walking.


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## Meltboy (May 14, 2013)

Depends on the situation.


If you're 20 feet away from shelter (home for instance) then it's better to limit the amount of time you spend in the rain by running.

Is the wind blowing the rain in one direction?
walk/run/sidestep with your side towards that direction to limit the surface area that can be hit by the rain.

Is the rain imaginary?
Stop imagining the rain.

Is the rain men?
Find cover immediately. Men falling from the sky will almost definitely kill you or cripple you on impact.

Is the rain God's tears?
Collect as much as possible and sell it in bottles as holy water.

Is the rain due to your terrible singing?
Everyone hates you. Stop singing.


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## Lexicon Devil (Mar 14, 2014)

Running in the rain is illogical. There is a significantly greater chance of slipping falling and giving yourself a serious injury. Right now I don't have the scientific studies on this, so you will have to seek them out yourselves.


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## Desolan (Nov 14, 2011)

if your goal is to get less wet then running is better. 

If you will be totally saturated either way then running will allow you to be in this saturated state for a shorter amount of time, however if the discomfort of being saturated is less than the discomfort of exertion received by running then walking may be a better option.


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## conscius (Apr 20, 2010)

Just came across this today:

Staying dry in rain: run or walk? - BBC News



> A physicist has put forth new ideas in the long-running question of how best to keep dry when moving in the rain.
> 
> If you run, you are out in the rain for less time, yet you run into more drops - so what is the optimal speed?
> 
> ...


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## ae1905 (Jun 7, 2014)

conscius said:


> Just came across this today:
> 
> Staying dry in rain: run or walk? - BBC News


Right, I got the stature part when I considered the dimensions of the person's body (width and depth), but for simplicity I assumed the rain was coming straight down. If you consider wind direction then a tailwind is generally better since you are running away from the rain rather than running into it. Funny that a physicist is writing about this in a professional journal! Does that mean they're getting close to the grand unified theory and now are fishing around for trivial problems to solve?


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## Euclid (Mar 20, 2014)

This is why I always have an umbrella with me no matter whether it's raining or not.


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## Kore (Aug 10, 2012)

If this has been posted already, I apologize.


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## Macrosapien (Apr 4, 2010)

TheProphetLaLa said:


> Waterproof mascara my friend. I'm always prepared.



but but but it looks cool when it runs.


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## Wild (Jul 14, 2014)

Fredward said:


> You should dance towards shelter. It's faster than walking but more elegant than running, it lets both the rain and the world at large know that everything really just exists for you.


I think I love you


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## Wild (Jul 14, 2014)

TheProphetLaLa said:


> I'm still going to run.


Is it bad that at this point, I thank your posts as soon as I see that they're by you?


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## Sunn (Mar 12, 2014)

ae1905 said:


> You'll stay drier the faster you move. To see this, consider the two extreme cases, one where you travel instantaneously to shelter, and the other where you travel infinitesimally slowly (effectively standing still). In the latter case, you will be hit by an infinite amount of rain since you will never reach shelter (except in the limit as time approaches infinity). In the former case, you will be hit by the amount of rain contained in the volume your bady sweeps out between your starting and end points, and that is a finite volume. Of course, you can't travel at infinite speed, but any actual speeds you might move at will lie between these two extremes. Put simply, the less time you spend in the rain, the drier you'll be.
> 
> (This is actually just a geometry problem that can be reduced to a two-dimensional calculation of the area occupied by all the rain drops that will fall on you. (You can disregard the third dimension represented by the width of your body (shoulder-to-shoulder) since this is a constant.) The smallest area is the rectangle formed by your height and the distance to shelter. The largest area is the infinitely tall rectangle formed by the depth of your body (front to back). These correspond to the two cases above of infinite and infinitesimal speeds, respectively. Between these extremes lie the infinite number of quadrilaterals corresponding to finite, non-zero speeds. It can easily be demonstrated the areas of these quadrilatreals depend directly on the time taken to move to shelter, and fall between the areas swept out in the extreme cases--ie, the faster you move, the smaller the area you will sweep out and the drier you will be.


Myth Busters "Running in the Rain Myth"

Take a peek. Gunna give you a hint though' it has an opposite outcome of what you suggested.


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## 001 (May 12, 2015)

conscius said:


> So have a physics question I guess. Today it was raining cats and dogs...and frogs and horses and the whole animal kingdom. Stupid me did not check the weather when walked to go shopping so as I was leaving the mall I realized my mistake, no umbrella, no jacket, no hat, nothing. So started walking home with my bags and then as I got closer to my apartment started essentially jogging home.
> 
> When I got home, I thought what a dumb thing I did, I just tired myself out, but I got wet just the same, seeing how limited time under the rain does not translate into less wetness. Per every second I ran through more raindrops this way, so end result is presumably the same. But then I thought what about the wind? Then I realized I know very little about physics so I thought I'll just ask the question here.


Doesn't it depend on how fast you run?

_
Dan Howitt


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## Lumin (Jul 18, 2015)

It also depends on the way you run. Are you running into the rain, or the other way?

Of course this question is only active if there is wind.


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## xisnotx (Mar 20, 2014)

It's a question of absorption. I think, animal cells can absorb so much water so as to actually burst..so that is to say, there is room for more wetness, so no, I think the wetness wouldnt be the same.

Negligible, but too much wetness can kill you, you know. It's called drowning.


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