You know rainfall as a common phenomenon, and we* would like to invite you to both explore and enjoy it in a different way, turning your own body into an experimental apparatus.
We propose three easy experiments you can do next time it rains. For each experiment, focus first on your perception for enjoying a moment of connection with a natural element, then, try to discover through your senses some of the rainfall features. Take a few notes (see below) about what you can observe. After, look at some suggestions on what to focus on, reported at the end, and repeat the experience of feeling rainfall, refining your perception and your findings!
It only takes a few minutes to do each of the three experiments. You can do them during a single rainfall event, or in different ones. There are no good or bad answers, it is your own perception that matters.
Experiment 1: Feeling rainfall with touch
Stand in the rain, free your hand and wrist from clothes and extend your arm. Close your eyes and focus on what you feel on the skin. You can also do it directly with your face, which is even more sensitive, simply by raising your head under the rain.
Experiment 2: Feeling rainfall with hearing
Find a quiet place which is not affected by too much noise, and stand still beneath an umbrella. Now, close your eyes and listen carefully. You can also do this under a tent or at the last floor of a house just beneath a thin roof.
Experiment 3: Feeling rainfall with your sight
Just look at raindrops falling, if possible with a dark background (like trees or buildings). The best is at night: go near a lamppost and just look through its light at falling raindrops.
* This series of experiences were designed by Auguste Gires and Eleonora Dallan who are two researchers on rainfall working respectively at Ecole nationale des ponts et chaussées in France and University of Padova in Italy.