I grew up in Northern California & lived for 6 years in Southern California. Now live in Arizona. A relative lived in Portland, OR for 13-14 years. The rain IS different in all 4 of those locations, and it affects one's perspective/point of view.
When I was living in Southern California, the local weather forecasters & news reporters would get very excited over even a little bit of rain. Why? Because especially in LA, after so many weeks without rain, people seemed to totally forget how to drive in the rain. This would result in lots of car wrecks & fender benders on the freeways. In other words, plenty of interesting video to broadcast from their traffic helicopters.
When I lived in Northern California (SF Bay Area) for many years, folks there tended to take the rain in stride, unless the forecast was for several days of really hard rain. Days and days on end of heavy rainfall usually resulted in mudslides. El Nino winters were rough on people who lived on the side of a hill.
A relative lived in Oregon for a long time. She used to say that it rained every day there, but the rain was a lot of drizzle. She described it as "spitting rain."
I have also lived in Arizona for several years now. People (myself included) are funny here about rain & what is considered "cold" weather. "Cold" = anything below 75 degrees. Seriously. Once it hits 69 degrees F, we break out the winter parkas. I, myself, have been known to wear a heavy jacket with flip flops.
I know, what the heck, right?
When it rains in AZ, we all cheer. It's considered a wonderful thing. Summer rain in AZ = heavy downpours. 1" of rain an hour would be a normal summer rainfall. But the rain is sporadic. Two blocks away, it could be a gully washer, but at your house it's bone dry. Oh...and Arizonans, like people from LA, forget how to drive in the rain all the time.
We also don't really have storm drains here. It all goes into washes, which eventually drain into rivers which most of the year, are dry or just a trickle. So when it rains a LOT, it's a freak of nature and we all look at the raging river with the brown water.
People from AZ also never have an umbrella with them. We will tend to just brave the elements and dash out to the car, but we get totally soaked in the process because the raindrops are so huge & enormous! Seriously, I have been soaked to the bone picking up my kids from school because I was an idiot and didn't bring an umbrella.
I look at the southern CA rain kind of like this...a wet day at Disneyland is far better than a nice day at work!
Being from the east coast, this is nothing for us. As long as it is not snow. Plus, this gives me a chance to do some posting on the DIS.
