Many words are associated with rain.
A pluviophile is someone who loves rain. If you hate rain, you are a misopluvia or rain adverse.
An extreme fear of rain can be pluviophobia or ombrophobia.
Pluviophobes fear weather related to rain such as storms, high winds, thunder, and lightning.
Ombrophobes have an intense fear of rain from severe weather or a drizzle. They may worry about acid rain, germs, or flooding. About 10% of Americans fear severe weather of some type.
People are either complaining about rain or complaining because it isn’t raining. How much time do we spend enjoying the rain?
Most of us enjoy a case-by-case love/hate relationship with rain. Mostly, we a enjoy a gentle shower or appreciate the majesty of a thunderstorm. We aren’t fans of unexpected showers that keep us inside or force us to cancel plans.
Rain engages all our senses. We can see, hear, taste, smell, and feel it.
Sometimes we receive warnings of an impending storm. Animals become restless. Dark clouds cover the sun. A bright blue sky becomes gray and foreboding. Lightning flashes and thunder rumbles before a single raindrop falls. These warnings can be quick or last for several hours or days as a preview of coming attractions.
Other times, the sun is shining brightly in a calm azure sky, and you feel tiny raindrops or experience a sudden cloudburst that ends as quickly as it appears. Serendipity is the happiness found in unexpected rain showers.
You can’t always see individual drops of rain as they fall to earth because they are mixed with other raindrops, but you can see where they land with a slight plop or in a deluge with hundreds or thousands of other raindrops. We can see ripples of water in puddles and the small marks left on surfaces of water when it rains are called dimples.
You can hear the rain. Susurrus is a soft whispering, murmuring, or rustling often used to describe sounds made when it’s raining. Rain landing makes a pitter-patter sound. Heavy rain often makes a pelting or slapping noise.
Have you ever caught raindrops on your tongue? Rain tastes differently depending on what’s in the air it travels through. It can be refreshing, sweet, or sour.
After a rain, the air smells cleaner and fresher.
Petrichor is the earthy and often metallic smell that occurs when rain falls on dry soil. It’s one of the most unique smells in nature. We don’t have to cultivate it or search for it. All we have to do is wait for a rainy day and breathe deeply. There’s something so calming about this scent; it resembles the peace I feel when I’m at the beach breathing in the ocean air.
We can be pelted with raindrops or bathed in refreshing drops that cascade gently down our cheek. Rain can be cold and stinging or warm and pleasurable. Tiny drops feel different from large collections of drops. Have you ever kept playing in the rain? Many athletes do unless there is a threat of lightning. When I was a kid, many kickball games and bike rides continued until that first rumble of thunder forced us inside.
Imagine running outside to celebrate those first drops of rain after a long drought and watching the thirsty plants as they seem to reach heavenward to receive the gift of rain.
Rain can be inconvenient, but doesn’t the world look greener and fresher after a spring rain?
I hope you seize the opportunity to play in the rain, dance in the rain, and fall in love as you fall in love with the rain.