About 6 months ago, I was doing carriages at Stop & Shop. A thunderstorm was approaching. It started raining very, very lightly. It was continuously getting harder, although it was still medium-light rain after 20 minutes, when I had to go inside due to the approaching thunderstorm.
This just does not happen where I live (even though it did). It is a bit more common with snow, but it's harder to distinguish minor changes in snowfall intensity compared to rainfall.
Many places have the saying that if you don't like the weather, wait 5 minutes. Then there are the places in the Southeast where it suddenly starts and stops raining at exactly the same time every day for part of the year. Where is what I described above a common occurrence?
Almost anywhere along Pugent Sound in Washington State. The rain in the winter feels like it's an almost constant trickle or mist at times but never anything like the torrents you see in the Southeast.
Yeah, I was going to say coastal areas of Oregon and Washington.
I know people in Portland pride themselves on handling the rain without umbrellas. That's because is constant light rain, never heavy downpours like we get around here.
Yeah Houston is basically one of those cities that gets random heavy downpours nearly every day in the summer. Usually the weather forecast reads something like 40% chance of scattered thunderstorms every day around then.
I think the only time Houston would get very gradual rain would be during a tropical storm or hurricane; even during cooler parts of the year, cold fronts that somehow come down here bring heavy rain and wind for an hour or so, and then leave.
So yeah, you'll probably never see common gradual rain in Houston.
Quote from: webny99 on March 21, 2020, 12:59:04 PM
Yeah, I was going to say coastal areas of Oregon and Washington.
I know people in Portland pride themselves on handling the rain without umbrellas. That's because is constant light rain, never heavy downpours like we get around here.
Pretty much the entire PNW is like that. Many of us own umbrellas for bigger storms, but use rain jackets day to day.
Big reason being that it doesn't rain here in the summer (except occasional thunderstorms); when it's late fall or winter and rainy, you have a jacket on anyway. May as well just get one with a hood.
In my case described above, it did get heavy, but it took over an hour.
They call it a "soaking rain" around here, and we get them frequently.
Quote from: jakeroot on March 21, 2020, 01:53:15 PM
Quote from: webny99 on March 21, 2020, 12:59:04 PM
Yeah, I was going to say coastal areas of Oregon and Washington.
I know people in Portland pride themselves on handling the rain without umbrellas. That's because is constant light rain, never heavy downpours like we get around here.
Pretty much the entire PNW is like that. Many of us own umbrellas for bigger storms, but use rain jackets day to day.
Big reason being that it doesn't rain here in the summer (except occasional thunderstorms); when it's late fall or winter and rainy, you have a jacket on anyway. May as well just get one with a hood.
Even places like the North Coast of California near Eureka and Crescent City get that away. Oddly in California the winter rains on the coast tend to be really heavy and sometimes very long lived which is usually followed up by dry weather. Big Sur as an example is either entire feast or famine in the winter with rain. I went out there about a month ago and it was about as dry as it was in the summer time.
Not here. In the Midwest it either a) drizzles all day without fail, or b) starts pouring immediately, and then subsides quickly.
STL has some famously variable weather as well (confluence of three rivers). Pop up T-storms common, though not as much as H-town.
Quote from: STLmapboy on June 30, 2020, 12:22:43 PM
STL has some famously variable weather as well (confluence of three rivers). Pop up T-storms common, though not as much as H-town.
What does the bolded have to do with the weather?
Quote from: SEWIGuy on June 30, 2020, 01:11:35 PM
Quote from: STLmapboy on June 30, 2020, 12:22:43 PM
STL has some famously variable weather as well (confluence of three rivers). Pop up T-storms common, though not as much as H-town.
What does the bolded have to do with the weather?
Common urban legend around here that the rivers screw up the climate. Probably not grounded in reality (but I'm too lazy to look it up).
Quote from: STLmapboy on June 30, 2020, 10:22:41 PM
Quote from: SEWIGuy on June 30, 2020, 01:11:35 PM
Quote from: STLmapboy on June 30, 2020, 12:22:43 PM
STL has some famously variable weather as well (confluence of three rivers). Pop up T-storms common, though not as much as H-town.
What does the bolded have to do with the weather?
Common urban legend around here that the rivers screw up the climate. Probably not grounded in reality (but I'm too lazy to look it up).
St. Louis residents probably look at their cool older brother Chicago and all the lake effect snow it gets, and say, "Man, I wish we had something like that..."
Kinda like how Chicagoans look at
their cool older brother New York and how it has oceanfront property, and say, "Well, we have a big lake at least..."
Quote from: STLmapboy on June 30, 2020, 10:22:41 PM
Quote from: SEWIGuy on June 30, 2020, 01:11:35 PM
Quote from: STLmapboy on June 30, 2020, 12:22:43 PM
STL has some famously variable weather as well (confluence of three rivers). Pop up T-storms common, though not as much as H-town.
What does the bolded have to do with the weather?
Common urban legend around here that the rivers screw up the climate. Probably not grounded in reality (but I'm too lazy to look it up).
I'm sure it has an impact on temperature and humidity. Not precipitation though.