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WEIRD{NV}: Raining milk in Reno? What is this stuff?

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idzrus

Monday, May 05, 2008 12:19 PM

WEIRD{NV}: Raining milk in Reno? What is this stuff?

Alrighty!!! All you super (souper) sleuths out there. We have a real mystery on our hands in Reno, NV.This is from a WGEN reader in the Reno area - this is something new to me so I am tossing it out to the WGEN list and beyond. If anyone has any 'realistic' thoughts on what this might be - let me know.Area 51? Art Bell? or this government doing more experiments on targeted areas?Jackie JunttiWGEN idzrus@earthlink net~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Jackie, Another weird thing …. It rained last night, leaving a milky white residue on everything. No coverage in media. I did a web search and the only thing I found was a reference to it happening in New Mexico in January. I couldn't get in their archives to get the whole article or I’d give you the link. Have you heard from others having this happen? Randi Wednesday, January 16, 2008 Rainy Riddle Milky-White Showers Shake Up Silver City Area By Rene Romo Albuquerque Journal Southern Bureau LAS CRUCES­ You've heard of the Milky Way. Now there's the milky rain. Scientists and others are trying to get to the bottom of a meteorological mystery in southwestern New Mexico: What caused the milky-white rain that fell last week over a large swath of Grant County, from Silver City to the Gila Cliff Dwellings? "I don't know what it was, but it left a milky, white residue on all the vehicles in town," said Lt. Eddie Ortiz, 48, of the Grant County Sheriff's Department, talking about the unusual Jan. 7 rainstorm. "It was like someone spilled milk on your windshield and it dried up," Ortiz said. "It was very weird, very strange. I've lived here all my life, and I've never seen anything like it." The storm left the few carwashes in Silver City busy for days as residents tried to remove the white residue the storm left behind. Efforts to analyze the mysterious rain began quickly. Among those collecting samples were Gila resident Russel Dobkins, the Gila Resources Information Project, or GRIP, a Silver City-based environmental group and the state Environment Department. Rain samples were sent last week to laboratories at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology in Socorro and the University of Texas at El Paso. A New Mexico State University professor was also enlisted to examine weather patterns the day the white rain fell. "This was an unusual event, and we are trying to determine what caused it," said Environment Department spokeswoman Marissa Stone. Based on his own research, Dobkins, a biochemistry student at Western New Mexico University, said the white rain fell over a 200-square-mile area from the Arizona border to the Mimbres Valley. The rain apparently caused no permanent damage to cars or other property, according to the sheriff's department, and there have been no confirmed reports of health problems resulting from the event. But Allyson Siwik, a GRIP executive director, said local residents want to know what turned the rain a milky white in order to put any concerns to rest. "There's definitely a buzz around town," Siwik said. "We hope to figure out what it is and turn the speculation into something based on science." Paul Maynes, manager at the Silver City Auto Spa, said he had heard speculation that dust from a volcanic eruption in South America mixed with rain to create the white appearance. But Richard Aster, a seismologist and geophysicist at New Mexico Tech, shot that theory down Tuesday. "There is absolutely no credence to that," Aster said. "There haven't been any large global events that would have sent anything our way." Thomas Gill, an associate professor of geological sciences at UTEP, who is investigating the white rain event, said he suspects that a dust storm or storms that blew northeast into Grant County from the state's Bootheel and southeastern Arizona were a "major contributor to this phenomenon." Gill said that chemical analyses could link the white rain's content to dusty playas­ large dry lake beds­ in the Bootheel area. If that is the explanation, Gill said, it does not diminish how unusual it was for rain to have formed milky puddles in Silver City and the surrounding areas. "I haven't really heard of milky rain before," Gill said. "I've heard of dusty rain or muddy rain, but it's usually not a milky color."

 

Thursday, January 24, 2008 Silver City's White Rain? Dust, Maybe By Rene Romo Albuquerque Journal; Journal Southern Bureau LAS CRUCES­ A NASA photograph taken from space might be a key to unlocking the meteorological mystery of Silver City's milky rain. The image taken by a NASA satellite on Jan. 7­ the same day the mysterious rain doused much of Grant County­ shows a whitish plume of material flowing under the cloud layer over a large dry lake bed south of Willcox, Ariz., according to Joel Gilbert of the University of Texas at El Paso. The lakebed, known as the Willcox playa, covers 50 to 60 square miles and is about 120 miles southwest of Silver City. A high-wind advisory was in effect in the Willcox area on Jan. 7, and dust was blowing across the area, according to the Arizona Department of Public Safety. "It looks like there's a plume of dust coming off the Willcox playa, and the Willcox playa has been a significant source of dust in the past," said Gilbert, an environmental science coordinator who is part of a group of scientists studying the milky rain. "The plume looks like it was blowing in the right direction to Silver City. It's possible the dust seeded the rain clouds and caused the precipitation in the first place." Finding the cause of the white rainfall appears weeks away, but the NASA image "is the best evidence we have so far," said Gilbert. Cars and homes across Grant County were drenched with the milky white rain that locals said they had never seen before. Concerns about what the strange rain contained prompted some Silver City area residents to launch an investigation that has drawn in researchers from the New Mexico Tech, New Mexico State University, UTEP and the state Environment Department. Gilbert said his analysis of six rain samples gathered from Silver City showed high levels of calcium, which is "not too unusual" given the geology of the Southwest. Additional tests still must still be conducted. Gilbert said he and other researchers are awaiting the arrival of samples of residue left behind by the milky rain for testing. New Mexico Environment Department spokeswoman Marissa Stone said that it will be perhaps two weeks before material collected in air quality monitoring devices is analyzed. In addition, Gilbert said, getting soil samples from the Willcox playa will be an important part of the effort to establish a link between the lakebed and the rain that fell on Silver City. The investigation, Gilbert noted, could be compromised by one other factor­ the quality of the rain samples collected from Silver City. Some of the rain samples were collected from rooftop run-off, others from rain gauges. Because the rainfall probably mixed with other material while it was collected, the samples might not accurately reflect what fell from the sky that day. "The data we are getting is still going to be questionable," Gilbert said.

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