Rain Drops Signal Cell Phones

An anonymous reader writes "Signals from mobile phone masts have been used to measure rainfall patterns in Israel, scientists report. From the BBC article: 'The University of Tel-Aviv analyzed information routinely collected by mobile networks and say their technique is more accurate than current methods used by meteorological services. The data is a by-product of mobile network operators' need to monitor signal strength. If bad weather causes a signal to drop, an automatic system analyzing the data boosts the signal to make sure that people can still use their mobile phones. The amount of reduction in signal strength gave the researchers an indication of how much rain had fallen.'"

what was that?

[celardore]

Sorry what was that? The signals patchy, with some sunny spells towards the afternoon...

The weatherman?

[RealGrouchy]

I always knew not to trust the weatherman, but you're telling me to trust the cell phone people now? I don't think I can handle *that*.

- RG>

Can you Hear me now

[SurfSlade]

Turns out the Verizon's "Can you hear me now" guy is a meteorologist after all.

Re:Headline?

[Elemenope]

That's why I generally don't bother anymore. I just skip to the synopsis, which, while often containing lies, damned lies, distortions, exaggerations, editorial, and occasionally even statistics, is usually nevertheless not gibberish. Why spend ten seconds confused when you could be spending twenty seconds disgusted?

Re:Headline?

[$RANDOMLUSER]

Actually, they meant "Fireplace Ladder Telephone Sandwich Tree".

Feature Creep.

[RoffleTheWaffle]

First, cellular phones were just that - cellular phones.

Then came the ringtones and other customization features, and those were fun to toy with.

Then there was web-browsing, which was even cooler, and actually served to make the phone more useful.

Then came the cameras for still-image and video capture - why for nobody knows, but people love it anyway.

Given all of that neat stuff, and the increasingly computer-like nature of cellular phones, what's the next feature on the horizon, you ask?

Portable weather stations. It just makes sense.

You need to read between the words...

[pieterh]

"Rain Drops Signal Cell Phones" really means:

"I'm zonked, it's late, and I'm going to copy and paste

Weird title.

[Vo0k]

There are so many ways to rearrange the words in the title to make sense of the article, and they have chosen one that is plain dumb. Cell phones don't get signalled by rain drops, nor rain makes you drop cell phone meant to signal.

Rain drops drop cell phone signal.
Rain drops cell phone signal.
Rain signalled by cell phone signal drops.
Cell phone signal drops signals rain.
Cell phones signal rain drops.
Drop in cell phone signal signals rain.

and quite a few more.

Re:So you're telling me...

[Ohreally_factor]

My cellular provider goes to 11.