A software engineer, visiting family after being abroad, encountered an unusual connectivity failure: the home Wi-Fi network performed optimally only when it was actively raining. The service provider, the engineer's father, noted this bizarre correlation, despite possessing extensive professional experience in complex network deployments.
Upon testing, the connection exhibited near total failure, reporting 98% packet loss, rendering internet service unusable for communication needs across continents. The anomaly persisted for weeks until the onset of rain immediately corrected the packet loss to zero, confirming the father's seemingly implausible observation, as reported by predr.ag.
The home setup relied on a decade-old, custom-installed line-of-sight Wi-Fi bridge utilizing high-gain directional antennas to pull a faster commercial connection from the father's nearby office. Local network components were functioning correctly, isolating the fault to the physical connection established between the two antenna endpoints.
Standard troubleshooting, including power cycling the hardware, provided no resolution, necessitating a physical inspection of the hardware spanning the distance between the office and the apartment. This required physically examining the antenna mounted two stories high on the building’s exterior scaffolding.
Closer inspection revealed that a neighbor's tree, which had grown significantly over the years, had finally extended its upper branches directly into the Fresnel zone required for optimal signal transmission between the antennas. This obstruction caused severe signal degradation when the branches were stationary.
Rainfall provided the physical mechanism for temporary signal clearance: water collecting on the leaves and branches increased their weight, causing them to droop downward and move out of the direct line-of-sight path. Once the rain stopped, the water slowly dripped off, causing the foliage to rise back into the path over approximately fifteen minutes.
Recognizing the root cause as a physical obstruction exacerbated by natural growth, the engineer determined that the aging 802.11g hardware was insufficiently robust to handle the minor signal degradation caused by the partially obstructed Fresnel zone. The resolution involved upgrading the system to newer 802.11n equipment, which employed superior error-correction mathematics and physics to maintain signal integrity.
This incident underscores the fragility of established physical layer infrastructure, particularly long-range wireless links relying on clear line-of-sight, even when utilizing professional-grade equipment. It serves as a reminder that environmental variables, such as long-term vegetative growth, can silently degrade performance until a dramatic meteorological event reveals the precise failure mechanism.
