You know when it rains after it hasn't rained for a long time and it smells all musky and metallic? What's that the smell of?

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This has been bothering me for some time.

― hmmm (hmmm), Wednesday, 9 March 2005 09:18 (twenty-one years ago)

I think it's the asphalt/whatever they make roads out of these days.

― Archel (Archel), Wednesday, 9 March 2005 09:25 (twenty-one years ago)

I had suspected as much. However, I am a little confused as to why it only smells like that after a prolonged period of dryness.

― hmmm (hmmm), Wednesday, 9 March 2005 09:38 (twenty-one years ago)

dirt.

― kate/thank you friendly cloud (papa november), Wednesday, 9 March 2005 09:39 (twenty-one years ago)

Not the ashphalt, you get it even when far from a road. I suspect it's omething to do with the damping of the dust in the air making it more readily smelt.

― Ed (dali), Wednesday, 9 March 2005 09:39 (twenty-one years ago)

That's what I always put it down to Ed.

― kate/thank you friendly cloud (papa november), Wednesday, 9 March 2005 09:42 (twenty-one years ago)

If it's rained recently then there won't be much atmospheric dust to make the smell.

― Ed (dali), Wednesday, 9 March 2005 09:44 (twenty-one years ago)

Yup, all makes sense.

― kate/thank you friendly cloud (papa november), Wednesday, 9 March 2005 09:45 (twenty-one years ago)

I always thought it was the airborne pollution that's not airborne anymore...

― mark grout (mark grout), Wednesday, 9 March 2005 09:50 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, but you get it way out in the country too.

― kate/thank you friendly cloud (papa november), Wednesday, 9 March 2005 09:51 (twenty-one years ago)

making it more readily smelt

Are wet things more easily smelt than dry things? I didn't know that. Perhaps I am confused.

― hmmm (hmmm), Wednesday, 9 March 2005 09:53 (twenty-one years ago)

dust particles are fairly big so won't readily attach to nasal receptor, a bit of moisture will liberate some aromatic chemicals from the inorganic millieu alowing smelling to happen.

― Ed (dali), Wednesday, 9 March 2005 09:54 (twenty-one years ago)

wow.

― hmmm (hmmm), Wednesday, 9 March 2005 09:56 (twenty-one years ago)

This is interesting:

http://www.aboutchildrenshealth.com/library/weekly/aa082500a.htm

― kate/thank you friendly cloud (papa november), Wednesday, 9 March 2005 09:57 (twenty-one years ago)

kate, yeah but then there's a lot of space between the clouds and ground, and the airborne pol can drift from urban to countryside...

I could be wrong, obviously...

― mark grout (mark grout), Wednesday, 9 March 2005 09:58 (twenty-one years ago)

The Flaming Lips had an album called "Clouds Taste Metallic"

Maybe there's a clue...

― mark grout (mark grout), Wednesday, 9 March 2005 09:59 (twenty-one years ago)

Me too.

xpost

flaming lips don't know shit.

― kate/thank you friendly cloud (papa november), Wednesday, 9 March 2005 10:00 (twenty-one years ago)

i love this smell

― Sven Bastard (blueski), Wednesday, 9 March 2005 10:18 (twenty-one years ago)

metal?

― ken c (ken c), Wednesday, 9 March 2005 11:00 (twenty-one years ago)

but what does metal smell of?

― Sven Bastard (blueski), Wednesday, 9 March 2005 11:00 (twenty-one years ago)

ed is clever I think. I love the smell too. It reminds me of breaktimes at school when it would start to rain and there'd be that smell coming off the playground, and we would all lie down quickly to create a silhouette of dryness before the teachers called us in for 'wet play'. Which now sounds filthy.

― Archel (Archel), Wednesday, 9 March 2005 11:08 (twenty-one years ago)

oh man, i'd forgotten all about how they would call us back into the building if there was heavy rain during playtime. great though, as it allowed more time for Playmobil.

― Sven Bastard (blueski), Wednesday, 9 March 2005 11:18 (twenty-one years ago)

isn't this something to do also with ionization of the air post-thunderstorm?

― sgs (sgs), Wednesday, 9 March 2005 11:29 (twenty-one years ago)

Sounds like Sarah is onto something!

― kate/thank you friendly cloud (papa november), Wednesday, 9 March 2005 11:30 (twenty-one years ago)

...

― RJG (RJG), Wednesday, 9 March 2005 11:32 (twenty-one years ago)

"SNATCH"
http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2004/SHOWBIZ/TV/03/19/deadwood/story.swearengen.jpg

― Chris 'The Nuts' V (Chris V), Wednesday, 9 March 2005 11:45 (twenty-one years ago)

When cars drive on dry roads, the tyres leave small traces of rubber compound on the road surface. I think the rain reacting with that residue (+ the pollution/exhaust gases etc) might have something to do with it, although I might just be making this up.

― C J (C J), Wednesday, 9 March 2005 11:47 (twenty-one years ago)

sgs is right, isnt it negative ions?

― Trayce (trayce), Wednesday, 9 March 2005 12:22 (twenty-one years ago)

small atom sized demons materialise after long dry periods, when it rains again they drown and the smell is THE DEMONS CORPSES ROTTING

― Ste (Fuzzy), Wednesday, 9 March 2005 12:28 (twenty-one years ago)

yes
xpost

― Matt (Matt), Wednesday, 9 March 2005 12:31 (twenty-one years ago)

Science aside, it smells damn good.

― kate/thank you friendly cloud (papa november), Wednesday, 9 March 2005 12:36 (twenty-one years ago)

From the New Scientist:

The smell is given off by Streptomyces bacteria, a genus belonging to the Actinomycetales order of Gram-positive eubacteria, also called actinomycetes.

The bacteria grow in damp, warm earth before fine weather dries out the soil, which then blows around as dust. During a dry spell, actinomycetes produce spores that are released on contact with moisture. Rain hitting the ground kicks up an aerosol of water and soil and you breathe in fine particles of soil containing the bacteria.

If you invite somebody to smell a plate of these bacteria grown in the lab, they always comment on how it smells just like the soil after rain.

Actinomycetes are also a source of many of our current antibiotics. Apparently, actinomycetes were also responsible for the distinctive smell of Glasgow's old underground system.

― Billy Dods (Billy Dods), Wednesday, 9 March 2005 12:36 (twenty-one years ago)

What about the distinctive smell of Glasgow's current underground system, though?

― caitlin (caitlin), Wednesday, 9 March 2005 12:40 (twenty-one years ago)

I thought that was piss and dead rats.

― hmmm (hmmm), Wednesday, 9 March 2005 13:07 (twenty-one years ago)

I was closest

― Ste (Fuzzy), Wednesday, 9 March 2005 13:41 (twenty-one years ago)

Ste, you said it was the radioactive decay of demons, I'm not sure you were the closest.

― Markelby (Mark C), Wednesday, 9 March 2005 14:40 (twenty-one years ago)

This is a great thread. It's funny how everyone knows the playground smell.

― youn, Thursday, 10 March 2005 04:16 (twenty-one years ago)

hmmm, in nyc its always piss and dead rats in the subways. the smell of hope.

― jane (jane), Thursday, 10 March 2005 04:24 (twenty-one years ago)

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