[nilstycho]

Far less than 10%. During a heavy downpour, by volume, about one part in a million is liquid. In a cubic meter of heavily rain, there are only a few tens of raindrops.

[deepsun]

Yep, but what matters for radar/lidar is the projection. I mean what percentage of 1 _square_ meter (not cubic meter) is occupied by droplet projections. Or, in radial terms, what percentage of "Solid angle" is occupied by rain droplets.

[naming_the_user]

Imagine if it were 10%, though. During the time it took for a droplet to fall 1 metre, you’d have 10cm of water on the floor.

I reckon it’d feel quite heavy.

[ricardobeat]

Rain falls at 9m/s, so in a second you'd almost completely fill that space with 900 liters. For the immediate area around you, imagine an olympic pool of water falling roughly every second.

[ethbr1]

According to NASA, terminal velocity for the largest droplets is ~10 m/s.

Which seems oddly close (in magnitude) to Earth gravitational acceleration (9.8 m/s^2).

Weird!