Sep 03, 2022
This puzzler comes from a listener in Plano, Texas. And I'm just gonna read it as he sent it. Here it is, in its grueling entirety... Kidding! It is pretty brief. But it is a good one!
He said, "I was working a little late in my office building one summer afternoon, although I couldn't see outside from where I was working. I heard thunder and figured it might be raining. When I left the building, I noticed my car had beads of water and there were a few wet spots around so there had been a light rain. It clearly hadn't rained much because it did not cool the air and the sun was shining again. As I was unlocking the door of my car, I noticed a wet spot in the space next to me. The space was empty, as were many parking spaces since most people that are already left. The thing I noticed was that the wet spot exactly fit the outline of a car. I started driving home but my mind was working on that wet spot. It seemed backwards somehow. If a car was sitting in the parking space when the rain came and was moved after the rain stopped, one would expect a dry spot. Not a wet spot. It would be a dry spot in the middle of surrounding wetness. But I had seen a wet spot in the middle of a surrounding dryness!"
So that is the whole thing. That is all you have to go on.
What was it that happened here?
Okay, it's time for the answer to this good little puzzler. I liked this one.
A guy is at work, it had rained. Thunder in the distance. He leaves and notices beads of water on his car, from the light rain storm. It clearly hadn't rained much because it hadn't cooled the air and the sun was now shining again. Next to him, as he pulled away he saw there was a wet spot in the shape of a car. Why would that be? If it had just rained, then there should have been a dry spot where the car used to be. But there wasn't. It was a wet spot, the shape of a car, surrounded by dry pavement.
So here is what happened. The car left before it started raining.
The car next to him which left this mystery spot had cast a shadow while it was parked there all day. By doing so, it make the area under the car cooler, because it was in shadow, while the surrounding pavement was in the sun. Then the car pulled away, and right at that moment, there was a little rain shower. And what happened was the rain fell and of course covered everything. But the area where the car had been was cooler and thus, that water did not evaporate as quickly as it did on the surrounding pavement, which was much hotter than the area that had been in shade.
Interesting little puzzler, this one!
