[Closed] Why does the rain smell nice after it's been sunny?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrichor

This is what's happening, as to why it smells good to humans - no one really knows.

Some people theorise it's so we could detect fresh rainfall in the deserts in the wind.

Petrichor is it's name.

From Wikipedia: Some scientists believe that humans appreciate the rain scent because ancestors may have relied on rainy weather for survival.

Sounds plausible

Sounds plausible

but's it's probably total bollards. Most people have the same "taste" in smells, nearly everyone likes the smell of fresh baked bread, fresh coffee, freshly laundered clothes, fresh laid tarmac, even petrol.

some things just smell nice.

That theory suggests that bubbles from porous surfaces create aerosols that float up and carry the smell to our noses.  I have another theory (unproven) which is that you get the smell most when rain falls on warm ground and then evaporates along with the smells.  Heavier rain cools the ground more and it wets out more quickly which inhibits this.

But I'm not claiming to be right 🙂

I don't know about "nice" but I always thought that the first rain following a dry spell smelt of dust/earth due to the rain drops picking up dust as they fell through the atmosphere. The drizzle this morning certainly smelt earthy.

The scent that hangs in the air after rain during a dry spell is due to microscopic fungal spores being released/areated in the air as the the rain hits the ground then bounces back up or evaporates

Someone once told me it was ozone and I just believed it since...

I was once on a Welsh mountain when I smelled rain. Looked up and saw that about five miles downwind of me a huge rainstorm was approaching. It was amazing to be able to smell it before I even saw it. For survival reasons the human nose is specially sensitive to the smells of smoke and rotten food so I wouldn't be surprised if the smell of rain was included in that.  We probably evolved that way, same as women are now rapidly evolving with narrower hips because cesarian section deliveries have removed the risk of dying in childbirth thanks to a too-narrow birth canal.

My wife never seems to be able to smell it.  She won't be much use when we are fending for ourselves in the wilds after Brexit.

I don't know, but it smells almost as good as snow. Who'd have thought I'd be so happy for rain?

same as women are now rapidly evolving with narrower hips because cesarian section deliveries have removed the risk of dying in childbirth thanks to a too-narrow birth canal.

or not

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2115103-are-caesareans-really-making-us-evolve-to-have-bigger-babies/

Explanation here

Negative ionisation.  Which is why you always feel a bit more 'up' as well...

We probably evolved that way

The world is already filled to the brim with evolutionary "Just so" stories, let's not add to them, eh? If there's any evidence for it, then sure, but given that Humans have (generally) a pretty poor sense of smell in comparison to pretty much everything else, it seems unlikely that we would've had this special adaptation for rain

Rain on dry mud is a pretty easily detectable smell, (like for instance hot tarmac, is that evolution as well?) it doesn't have to have any more biology behind it than that.

Why are people on this forum so damned sensible?

Excited plant farts.