Ever wonder if a laser umbrella is feasible? If so, xkcd has just the video for you. The idea is to stop rain with a laser that targets and vaporizes each incoming droplet before it comes within ten feet of the ground.
The first issue is the fact that vaporizing a liter of water requires around 2.6 megajoules and a large rainstorm might drop half an inch of rain per hour. This means you’ll end up creating a cloud of steam around yourself, into which you’re generating increasing amounts of laser energy. Another issue would be targeting, which needs adaptive optics for extremely fast and precise control of light beams.
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It might seem easier to forget about targeting completely and just fire lasers in random directions. If you aim a laser beam in a random direction, how far will it go before it hits a drop? This is a pretty easy question to answer; it’s the same as asking how far you can see in the rain, and the answer is at least several hundred meters,” according to xkcd.
