Does it really rain plastic?

The short answer to the headline – yes, it does rain plastic. Take a look around, plastic is everywhere. It’s in our everyday lives; it is, in fact, omnipresent. It is in our rain too. Plastic is an environmental challenge that is piling up globally. About 300 million tons of plastic is manufactured annually. Landfills are full of plastic and it will be there for a long time. Our oceans are increasingly becoming a type of catchment for plastics of all kinds – mini-continents.

Two recent studies have verified the presence of microplastic particles on rain water. A study published in Nature Geosciences in April addressed atmospheric microplastic deposition in a remote area of France. The study was conducted over a five-month period during both wet and dry conditions at a site in the French Pyrenees mountains. The researchers found fibers and fragments of microplastics. Daily, counts of 249 fragments, 73 filaments and 44 fibers per square meter of rain water that was deposited in their catchment were found. They analyzed air-mass trajectory and found microplastics can be transported through our atmosphere up to 95 kilometers (59 miles).

Another recent study was conducted by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) using eight sites in the Colorado Front Range. These researchers found that more plastic was observed in samples from urban areas than from remote, mountainous sites. However, these researchers found at one remote site at Loch Vale, Rocky Mountain National Park, there was frequent observation of plastic fibers in washout samples. They state an air-mass back-trajectory analysis of the Rocky Mountain National Park site for 24 hours prior to sample collection at various altitudes, that plastic deposition was more positively identified for westerly storms than easterly storms.

So, plastic is in rainwater and that water, in part, becomes water for consumption for a good portion of humanity. Are the microplastic bits filtered out at some point along the rainwater-to-consumption chain? As the conclusion of the USGS study states, and I agree, “It is raining plastic. Better methods of sampling, identification, and quantification of plastic deposition along with assessment of potential ecological effects are needed.” Cheers, here’s to a glass full of water and … ?

The weather data for May 2019 are as follows: Total precipitation for May was 1.8 inches. We had a big rain about mid-May, and I measured 1.44 inches in a 24-hour period. The last time I had over 1 inch in a 24-hour period was back on May 28, 2010, with 1.33 inches. The all-time maximum was in 1948 with 5.52 inches. The mean for May is 1.15 inches. So, we had a generally wet month. Temperatures ranged from a high of 88.6˚F on the 30th to a low of 35.3˚F on the 3rd. The all-time high temperature for May was in 1986 with 100˚F. The all-time low was in 1954 at 27˚F. The mean for May is 58.4˚F and I measured 62.5˚F for a mean in May 2019.

Generally, the sky is clear this time of year. Let’s take a look at the planets that can be seen during the month of June. With thanks to our friends at EarthSky, here’s what’s visible: Jupiter dominates the June night from dusk until dawn. At dusk, Mercury and Mars have the year’s closest conjunction of two planets around June 18. Saturn is out from mid-evening until dawn. Bright Venus appears momentarily before sunrise. A full Moon occurs on June 17, and it’s called the Strawberry Moon. Why Strawberry Moon? The answer from TimeandDate.com: “June’s Full Moon is named after the wild strawberries that start to ripen during this month. According to some sources, a European name for this early summer month was Rose Moon, and another was Hot Moon, for the beginning of the summer heat. Other sources quote Mead Moon as the Anglo-Saxon name because this was the time for mowing the meads, or meadows.”