I love the rain! Love it! It was windy today, and that was nice enough, but then...oh but then, the rain came. Lovely rain makes me so happy. I hope it rains for days. Weeks. After all the fires around my city last summer, and all the complaints about it being too dry, I will laugh and laugh and laugh if flooding starts. It'll give the end-of-the-worlders something to shout about too. I'm on the third floor, what do I care?

But to my point...how do you feel about rain? Do you love it like me?Do you hate it? Do you suddenly feel the need to dance nakedly when you feel those gentle little droplets?

Oh, raindrops keep falling on my head....

As the Big Yin says, if you live in Scotland there's no such thing as bad weather, just the wrong clothes.

Personally, I rather like rain. It saves me watering the plants.

Cheers,
Graham

I live between Vancouver and Seattle. If i didn't enjoy rain, fog, and clouds, then i would me miserable for about half of the year.

I spent three decades in Vermont, near the border with Quebec and upstate New York. The winters were abysmal: ultra-cold, ultra-dry, skin cracking and frostbite making your extremities fall off, if you weren't already buried under snow, sleet, and the occasional monstrous ice-storm. Summers were oppressive: hideously hot, humid, and too many insects. I used to tell people that there were only two nice seasons in Vermont: May 20th, and September 16th.

So now that i live in the mildest climate in the world (comparable to parts of coastal Britain, much of New Zealand, and really only a couple degrees cooler than San Francisco during the brief wintertime) i am genuinely delighted every single day of the year by the weather. Never too hot, never too cold, never too dry-- it's so easy!

The rain is actually the key to our comfort in this zone, where i live at the confluence of the Georgia Strait, the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and the Puget Sound. During the winter, all the moisture and warm Pacific currents drifting up here from Hawaii make the climate mild. During the summer, all the breezes and cool currents flowing down from the Gulf of Alaska help to moderate the conditions.

Some people don't like the clouds and rain here, because they consider it to be too gloomy from November until April. But in my case, i'm loving it: i've taken several medications for years which cause hypersensitivity to sunlight exposure, so six months of rain actually saves me a lot of aggravation.

Oh, and i'm not supposed to be sharing a little secret with you people who don't live here in this part of the coastal Pacific Northwest; but life is short, so i'm going to go ahead and spill the beans. The whole image of this region being constantly rainy is a myth. That's right: it's not even really a half-truth. We just tell these fibs to outsiders, because it's overpopulated here already, and we don't want everybody in the world to find out what a fabulous place it is, because they'll all keep flocking here in droves, even more so than has already happened. The honest truth is: it's really only rainy for about half of the year. Our late springtime and all of our summer and much of our early autumn are actually typically drier and often quite sunny. We just lie to everybody and claim that it always rains, so they won't want to move here too.

If you look at the weather almanac records, and compare the Lake Champlain valley of Vermont (where i used to live) and the San Juan Islands region of Washington state (where i am now) you will find that the total amount of sunshine and daylight over the course of a year is actually almost the same. The difference is in distribution: here, we have half a year of rain, half a year of sun. Back in Vermont, the weather was tremendously variable from one minute to the next, so you had rain and sun, snow and sun, sleet and sun, fog and sun, ice crystals and sun... sometimes all in the same day.

Now everybody in Bellingham is going to be mad that i've blurted out the truth :-)

Dancing in the rain is fun...
Especially barefoot in the newly-made mud.

Have you ever tried blowing bubbles in the rain? The individual raindrops bursting the bubbles makes for an interesting effect.

Who needs umbrellas?

In Response to Teledildonix (#14720):

thats interesting indeed. i've been considering a move to vancouver for some time now, and your weather reports have made me think i'll like it even more. the rain part especially.

i live in okanagan valley, a little east of van, and our weather here is sporadic. it changes so often, no one ever knows what to expect. except heat. we can always expect that. the constant burning of last august/september can attest to just how damn dry it is here in the summer. thats the real reason i'd like to leave. damn i hate the sun. and the snow. so the coast sounds so appealing. mild weather. mmm. mild.

In Response to goat_girl (#14731):

Rain, huh? When it rains, I like to hibernate in my basement room and try to sleep. I'm in Dubuque at Iowa, which is right by the Mississippi, and it's damp as hell around here all the time. Hazy alot. So it rains often, and it just makes me want to sleep.

In Response to lichkeeg (#14732):

hey fucky! shiny boy!

rain never makes me sleepy. if i'm not outside in it, then i'm laying/sitting around listening to it. one of my absolute favourite sounds is rain falling on a metal rooftop. i love just staring out the window at the rain falling under the streetlights. but then i love all water. i'm pretty sure i should have been a fish. fishy fishy fishy.

In Response to goat_girl (#14733):

Hmmm... I'm beginning to believe all those jokes about the people in British Columbia and their affinity for smoking the wacky weed. :-)

In Response to goat_girl (#14731):

Ah, yes-- the Okanagan region of northern Washington state (a couple hundred kilometers east of me) is just like the region further north, where you are.

The "Lower Mainland" of B.C. (which extends from my location near the Canadian-American border up the Frasier Canyon) has the same weather as the Puget Sound region. The "Sunshine Coast" (north of the Howe Sound) has the same temperatures and mildness, but is in the 'rain-shadow' of Vancouver Island, and gets noticeably less rain than Vancouver and Bellingham. Further inland (east and north of this area) the higher elevations cause the climate to be much more similar to yours in the Okanagan. Southern Vancouver Island (Victoria, Sydney, Nanaimo) also enjoys the same weather as Vancouver; and they are reputed to be just about the most civilized, friendly, and socially progressive people anywhere (give those Benelux liberals some competition!). As you head further north, the geography and climate tends to be similar to eastern Alaska and the southern Yukon-- which would help explain why so few people live there.

I'm no expert on geography, weather, or Canada. But all my life, i've lived near the border (first in Vermont, now in Washington state) and i've always been exposed to pretty much equal amounts of Canadian media as American. When i lived in Vermont, i got most of my news and entertainment from Montreal and southern Quebec. Now that i'm so close to Vancouver and Victoria, i get much of my TV and radio reception from these metropolitan areas (more so than Seattle, Tacoma, Everett, and Olympia, for instance). So any time i turn on the television, i can watch the weather reports from the CBC, CTV, CanWest-Global, CHUM, and CityTV. That's why i happen to be familiar with the conditions of Canada's West Coast.

One other note about the climate around here: whether you live on the west-facing slopes of the Cascades and Canadian Coastal Range versus the east-facing slopes makes a huge difference. All of the Pacific winds and moisture flow up over the west-facing slopes, and so these places are known as the world's largest temperate rain forests. Whereas, if you're on the east-facing slopes, most of the clouds would have already dumped their payloads on their journey uphill, and the result is drastically less rain on that side. In fact, those of us who are facing west (toward the incoming Pacific fronts) tend to get two, three, or even four times as much rain (and thus, milder and much more tolerable weather) than those poor fellows living on the drier colder east-facing inclines.

And pretty much all of the topography around here is steep, no matter where you are. That was one of the first things i noticed when i moved here: there's no such thing as flat land (of any significant size) in this area. Everywhere you go, it's all quite steep; the combination of volcanoes and three converging tectonic plates results in tremendous geological upheaval. The Green Mountain State (Vermont) seems so puny in comparison; the tallest mountains in Vermont would barely be considered hills around here. On a clear day, i can see about fifteen or twenty volcanos from my window-- and many of the slopes rise at seventy and eighty degree angles!!

So to summarize: mild, wet, steep, volcanic, seismic; liberal, civilized, well-developed; imminently habitable. Sure, i'm biased, but i'd argue with anybody that this is one of the best places to live in the whole world. Of course, maybe some day i'll finally go visit my grandmother in New Zealand, and see how it compares; but that's just a daydream for now.

In Response to Teledildonix (#14734):

oh its true...its all true. especially campbell, he's knee deep in the stuff.

in all serious though, i only rarely smoke. people never seem to want to believe that i'm a complete moron without the help of any drugs, but its absolutely, entirely true. i'm just like this. i don't need help.

In Response to goat_girl (#14736):

. people never seem to want to believe that i'm a complete moron without the help of any drugs

Yeah.

It should be blazingly obvious to everyone that I don't need to smoke weed in order to be Extra Stupid.

Or creative, for that matter.

But keep your mitts off my beer.

Rain is good. I like rain. If it's warm.

But I'd much rather have snow. And if it's going to be over 70 deg F., I want it to be under 50% humidity. PLEASE!!!

In Response to goat_girl (#14736):

especially campbell, he's knee deep in the stuff

{* in the voice of the prosecuting attorney from The Simpsons *} "Let the record show that the witness made the 'drinky-drinky' motion."

Ahh, British Columbia. You folks must have more forgiveness than most people. The Premier of your province drove around Hawaii with enough booze in his bloodstream to stun a horse, got charged with DUI, and then you let him go back to his job with a tiny scolding... business as usual. Of course, i can just imagine what the world must think of the current American 'President' [quotation marks are mine-- :-P nyah nyah] with his record of drunk-driving, drug abuse, and other transgressions. Well, i suppose all those court records were conveniently 'misplaced'.

In this coastal area, altitude is a big determining factor in the temperature and relative mildness. I've been living along the oceanfront for two winters. The first year, we had no snow. This most recent winter, we had one snowstorm; but the rain washed it all away within a couple days. Just a few miles inland, however, things are different. As soon as you go twenty miles east, your elevation goes up several thousand feet, and the temperatures are much lower in the winter. So the people up in the hills and mountainsides often get just as much snowfall as you probably get in the Okanagans. That's probably why ninety percent of the inhabitants of Western Washington live within a few miles of the coastline.

In Response to Teledildonix (#14739):

its not that we're forgiving, its more that we've ceased to care. our province has been fucked so very far into the ground that people just look at our government and say "yup, screwed up". we expect campbell to do stupid things. its really not so bad.

In Response to zamphir (#14737):

oh, i agree. hot moist air hurts me in deep deep ways.

I don't like rain when it is already cold and dank and horrible. I like it in the summers when it comes along with lightning and thunder, and you can actually go outside and feel the hot muggy air cut through with the cool droplets of rain.

Ice storms suck.

In Response to goat_girl (#14741):

Replace campbell with Lord [nbed.nb.ca] and you could live in New Brunswick. Though Bernie's never been publicly confronted anout any of his past we all know he's got one.

    Regardless of local Flubberment, if you like the rain, there's no better place to be than here in the east coast! Some seasons are better than others, however we get some of the best spring showers I've ever been in. The raindrops are huge and explode on contact, deluging everybody instantly, so really there's nothing for it but to cut loose and run around barefoot with the squishy, squoshy greenery underfoot. But even better, I just moved into a house that has a metal-roofed shed for me to putter around in out back, and spring moisture has already arrived in our air here, the rich earthy undertones carrying the sharper tang of the ocean's breeze into my glass foundry.

I can't wait for the rain to come visit me.

In Response to Magus (#14759):

spring moisture has already arrived in our air here

That's the first I've heard anyone use that term to describe snow.

50(F) one weekend, snow the next day. At least I haven't packed my jacket and skis away yet.

I live in Binghamton, NY. This is, for the uninitiated, nowhere near the New Yorn where Toothgnip lives, and perhaps even farther from the real New York City.

According to USA Today Weather Almanac (best source I could find at short research), Binghamton is the 7th cloudiest city in the US, and the 10th Rainiest. This is unusual mainly because every other cloudy/rainy city in the US is by a large lake, and we're 300 miles inland from the nearest major body of water that the gulf stream would carry it by.

I used to like the rain. It used to be wonderful and refreshing. Now it's just wet.

I used to hate the snow. I used to live even farther in the north of NY, on the Tug Hill Plateau. Annually that area gets 200+ inches of snow a season. Whiteouts and lesser blizzards are a daily winter occurance, and most of the population has snowmobiles for recreation.

I miss the snow now.

Should we talk about the government?

Hi Hi?

In Response to deerboy (#14779):

Hello, how are you? I know you, I knew you

In Response to Magus (#14759):

I can't wait for the rain to come visit me.

  When I said that I suppose I should have specified that I was looking for the wet kind and not the frozen white kind that accumulates in foot-deep drifts in my driveway.

In Response to Magus (#14808):

i hate damn snow so much. it was so nice for a couple days here, and then it snowed again. i freaked out. there was yelling. if it snows again after the beautiful week we've had, i may just have to resort to drastic measures. i'll write a letter! don't test me!

In Response to goat_girl (#14809):

I was about to go ahead and let you know about the terrible Iowa winters we get, but then I saw that you live in Canada, and figured that was a foolish thing to say.

But an interesting note is that our largest snowfall happened here during my mom's childhood in April. It was a ridiculous amount of snow, too. Hottest day ever was like... 103 degrees or something around here.

We're such a state of contrast.

In Response to lichkeeg (#14814):

well, you could still tell me all about your terrible winters. our winters actually aren't to bad, i live in one of the mildest areas of canada. i'm just a sad, little girl who hates the cold.

  its the heat that hurts me so here. daily temps in july and august average 95-100 F. but i'm actually looking forward to it this summer. i think. i actually missed the sun. i was excited to wear shorts this week. i'm kind of unsure what to make of that.

In Response to lichkeeg (#14814):

I was about to go ahead and let you know about the terrible Iowa winters we get, but then I saw that you live in Canada, and figured that was a foolish thing to say.

  That's my end of Canada that gets most of the winter's brunt. Goat Girl is fortunate to live out West where, for the majority of the year, it's gorgeous! (or at the least, tolerable...)
  I've been as far out as Powell River and I must admit, it was everything I had in me to get back on a plane bound east.

   

In Response to goat_girl (#14815):

Ah... We get some of the most contrasting weather. In the month of April here, it can be absolutely freezing one day, and be uncomfortably hot the next (80 degrees, which is uncomfortable after having a day that's 32 degrees or so). Snow lately has been pretty minimal, but this season it kicked back up again and we had a pretty good snowfall, but nowhere near the average I've been used to seeing here in Iowa. I can't give you precipitation in inches or anything like that, but ridiculously cold describes Iowa for you.