The cycle of water, much like the cycle of life
Rain.
Too much and we have a flood. Too little and it蘑菇视频 a drought. Just enough and we have life. Water is the basic ingredient of life. Here in our corner of the world we kind of take water for granted. We turn on the tap and there it is: plenty to drink wash or water the lawn. The local lowlands average 40 inches of rainfall per year. In the mountains, the average is 54 inches. Once again, this provides us with an abundance of water and makes Pennsylvania a great area to raise crops. Many areas of the United States and the world receive very little rainfall and this makes life much more difficult. The Southwest receives only a few inches of rain per year while the Northwest gets over 100 inches.
Have you ever considered where our rain comes from? I was out working in the garden a few days ago and it started to rain. A drop fell on my arm and another drop landed on the pavement. These were quickly followed by more drops and shortly the pavement was wet and a small puddle formed. Soon the puddle overflowed and a small stream of water headed for the roadside where it joined other water and soon the culvert alongside the road was on its way to still another larger stream. Around the corner the larger stream joined others and dropped into Meadow Run, then into the Youghiogheny River to begin its long journey to the Gulf of Mexico.
Near McKeesport the water from the Yough, including the drops that fell into my puddle, join the Monongahela River and then travel to Pittsburgh and join the Ohio River. The journey continues down the Ohio to the Mississippi river, through the delta region in Louisiana and out into the Gulf of Mexico.
What a journey!
The Gulf of Mexico is a very warm and moist part of the world. You can feel the moisture in the area via of the dew-point temperatures or the humidity. The area also gets a lot of sunshine.
The evaporation process begins to take place and the moisture is lifted from the water surface into the atmosphere where it is carried away by our earth蘑菇视频 transportation system, wind. In the lifting process, clouds form, at first to store some of the moisture and later, when too much is available, the clouds become overly saturated, and as I look up into the sky a week later, it starts to rain again.
This is known as the water cycle or hydrological cycle and perhaps the chart will help explain why the drink of water you have today might have been the water the dinosaurs drank millions of years ago.
The same amount of water always exists. Sometimes it is locked in ice, sometimes it is invisible water vapor and sometimes it is just a raindrop or a puddle.