Subject: Milk Colored Rain In Reno. May 6. 2008.
Here is a report on some milk colored rain that
fell in Reno, NV.
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Subject: 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 Juntti
WGEN idzrus@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
net
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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 N-SA photograph taken from space might
be a key to unlocking the meteorological mystery of
Silver City's milky rain.
The image taken by a NA-A 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 NA=A 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.
(JW As one of my friends commented on this
situation, "It looks like one of the things that
Charles Fort would have investigated, if he was still
alive.")
John Winston. johnfw@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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