Curious minds want to know… about rain

Earlier this month, I got an email from Rick; he had a question about rain. He was watching the forecast during one of our many nor’easters and noticed that the storm travelled over the ocean before coming up the Bay of Fundy. He wondered “if the moisture that feeds the system is salty, what happens to the salt”?

The principle mechanism for weather systems to gain moisture from the ocean is evaporation, where water vapour is lost from the sea surface. During this process, the salt is left behind. The water is “distilled” and becomes nearly pure water vapour.

Not convinced? Try this little experiment. Dissolve some salt in warm water; put it in a saucer and leave the saucer on a windowsill. Eventually the water will evaporate & you will be left with salty sediment in the saucer. Having said that…

In the case of a very strong storm like a nor’easter, there could be some slightly salty rain that develops. If the wind is strong, it can lift salt water from the ocean’s choppy surface and feed it into an updraft; it then becomes part of the cloud and the water cycle.