A body of previous theoretical and experimental studies suggests that there is a general formulation for raindrop size distribution properties able to describe them in a wide variety of rain conditions. The formulation basically relates the evolution of the drop populations to a rain bulk variable, such as the rain rate. This paper proposes a simple methodology to carry out testing in order to seek experimental evidence of such a description. Four data sets from diverse devices, locations, and climates are used in an event-by-event analysis. The results show good general agreement between data and theory in regard to of the defined criteria: linear increase in the exponents of bulk variables relationships and self-consistency of the fitting procedure, leading to an experimental confirmation of the general description and its implicit hypothesis. The question of the number of parameters and the shape of the function needed to identify drop size distribution are discussed at different levels of the study. Dimensional considerations about the general expression are given in the appendix. ¿ 1998 American Geophysical Union