'oil rain' evident in New Orleans on the Superdome

[DjLoTi]

YouTube - It's raining Oil in New Orleans... Gov't caused oil blow-out creating OIL RAIN! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_9tBPXMK78)

[Zippyjuan]

"Government caused blowout"- really? and s dirty roof is evidence of "oil rain"? Did it just "oil rain" on the roof of that building? There should be oil all over the area if it did. For it to rain oil (which in theory can happen) you need someting llke a tornado or waterspout or hurricaine in the area to suck up the oil along with water. Oil won't just evaporate and come down in rain.

[DjLoTi]

Here's the thing. I used to be a weather man in the military at Pensacola. With Tropical storm Alex discharging bands onto the coast, it gives it extra lift. All clouds are is lifted moisture. That's why the gulf coast has more rainfall then any other part of the country.

I don't know about you, but it looked sort of like oil to me. It was just gross. It was like dirt or something. Personally I think we'll see more evidence in the event of a hurricane along the gulf coast.

[Brian4Liberty]

They have been burning a lot of oil. Soot will definitely go into the clouds. Might be an oily soot in this case. Dispersants may allow some things to evaporate into the air...

[Zippyjuan]

Unless they washed it recently, even if it looked "white", the dome was surely covered in dirt and pollution and dust. If it rained recently, that can wash some of that around- leaving streaking in places. A dirty roof is not evidence of "oil rain". Dispersants break up the surface tension and allows the oil to sink- they do not help them to evaporate into the air.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2010/0625/Raining-oil-in-Louisiana-Not-likely.

Raining oil in Louisiana? Not likely.

By Pete Spotts, Staff writer / June 25, 2010

Raining oil in Louisiana? Oil on the ground, very likely. Raining oil, no.

.A YouTube video has been making the rounds purporting to show evidence of oil that has "rained" from the skies over the New Orleans suburb of River Ridge.

The far more likely source is closer to Earth – runoff from roads, parking lots, and industrial facilities in the area where the video clip was filmed.

"There's certainly a lot of reasons to be concerned" about the Deepwater Horizon blow-out, says Doug Helton, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's incident response coordinator with long experience dealing with urban oil runoff. "This is not one of them."

The reasons have to do with nature of oil and how its components behave in the atmosphere, scientists say.

In short, oil and water don't mix, explains Christopher Marshall, a former research chemist with Amoco Oil and now director of an institute looking for ways to develop biofuel replacements for oil and gasoline at the Argonne National Laboratory in Argonne, Ill.

The story begins with the oil itself, he says. Oil consists of four broad categories of hydrocarbons: paraffins, napthenes, aromatics, and asphaltenes. The relative amount of each depends on the age of the oil deposit. Older oil is heavy on the heavy hydrocarbons, such as asphaltenes -- the basic material for patching potholes, Dr. Marshall says. Younger oil, such as the Gulf reservoir BP was trying to exploit, is dominated by the other, lighter hydrocabons.

When the leaking oil reaches the surface, the lightest hydrocarbons in the blend evaporate, giving off gases such as methane, ethane, and propane. This evaporation turns the remainder of the oil into a heavier globs that become the tar balls washing on to beaches or oil that loses its buoyancy compared with water and sinks into the water column.

The evaporating hydrocarbons can contribute pollution problems of their own, combining with ozone to form smog, for instance. But they don't recombine to form oil that can subsequently return as a component of rain drops.

One theoretical pathway for oil itself to get lofted involves waterspouts – essentially small tornadoes over the ocean. Indeed, local residents spotted and photographed a water spout over Lake Ponchartrain earlier this month.

While oil from the BP blow-out hasn't reached the lake, it has long had pollution problems of its own.

Still, that mechanism is a stretch, researchers acknowledge.

But the video is not without its own take-home message, Mr. Helton adds.

"What we're really looking at is a non-point source of oil pollution, which is a very big thing to be concerned about," he says. Oil leaking from cars to lawnmowers or oil that's not properly disposed of "adds up to be a lot of oil every year that comes into rivers and bays and ultimately out into the ocean."

[MsDoodahs]

Drove from west of Houston to Lake Charles yesterday - in the rainbands off the hurricane.

No oil rain, at all.

Drove from Lake Charles back to Houston today - in the rainbands off the hurricane.

No oil rain, at all.

So we have that going for us. Which is good.

[TNforPaul45]

Ok,

One more time.

It is scientifically impossible for Oil to enter the hydrologic cycle and come down along side rain drops. Only a strong wind or localized air pressure event (water spout, hurricane) can pull the oil from the ocean and deposit it elsewhere in the ocean or on the land.

The only thing that enters the hydrologic cycle is dihydrogen monoxide molecules in vapor form. The part of the hydrologic cycle in the atmosphere may then mix with aerosol pollutants, and cause issues like Acid Rain, etc.

Brian4Liberty's soot theory is the most likely scenario.

Always remember: Everytime you take a drink of water, you are drinking the urine of every person who has ever lived LOL.

[paulitics]

Ok,

One more time.

It is scientifically impossible for Oil to enter the hydrologic cycle and come down along side rain drops. Only a strong wind or localized air pressure event (water spout, hurricane) can pull the oil from the ocean and deposit it elsewhere in the ocean or on the land.

The only thing that enters the hydrologic cycle is dihydrogen monoxide molecules in vapor form. The part of the hydrologic cycle in the atmosphere may then mix with aerosol pollutants, and cause issues like Acid Rain, etc.

Brian4Liberty's soot theory is the most likely scenario.

Always remember: Everytime you take a drink of water, you are drinking the urine of every person who has ever lived LOL.

This sounds right to me.

[MelissaWV]

...

Always remember: Everytime you take a drink of water, you are drinking the urine of every person who has ever lived LOL.

A little less so when it's real spring water :)

Of course, then you're still likely to be drinking animal urine.

[heavenlyboy34]

Ok,

One more time.

It is scientifically impossible for Oil to enter the hydrologic cycle and come down along side rain drops. Only a strong wind or localized air pressure event (water spout, hurricane) can pull the oil from the ocean and deposit it elsewhere in the ocean or on the land.

The only thing that enters the hydrologic cycle is dihydrogen monoxide molecules in vapor form. The part of the hydrologic cycle in the atmosphere may then mix with aerosol pollutants, and cause issues like Acid Rain, etc.

Brian4Liberty's soot theory is the most likely scenario.

Always remember: Everytime you take a drink of water, you are drinking the urine of every person who has ever lived LOL.


Kinda, except without the urea in it. ;)

[libertythor]

A little less so when it's real spring water :)

Of course, then you're still likely to be drinking animal urine.

I read somewhere that in any glass of water you pour for yourself that there are a couple of molecules in there that were once in Hitler's turds.

[Matt Collins]

I'm in Pensacola at the moment and it rained on me twice in the last couple of hours. I didn't see any oil residue.

[Brian4Liberty]

Always remember: Everytime you take a drink of water, you are drinking the urine of every person who has ever lived LOL.

And that applies double to astronauts on the Space Station... ;)