Re: Dry "wet" roads

["John S. Denker" <jsd@MONMOUTH.COM>]

On 04/18/2003 05:58 AM, Richard L Bowman wrote:
> A class of fourth and fifth grade students have emailed me some questions
> about light. They are all good questions and a challenge to answer in the
> vocabulary of this age group. However, one has me a bit stumped. Can anyone
> point me in a good direction for answering the following?
>          Why does a road appear wet on a hot day?
> We are having rainy weather here now, but I am assuming they are asking
> about what we see at low angles from the road surface.

I suspect they're referring to the classical inferior mirage.
There's a nice discussion at:
  http://mintaka.sdsu.edu/GF/mirages/mirintro.html