Monday, March 21, 2011

Unseasonable rainy season style rain

When is rainy-season style rain not rainy season rain?

When it occurs outside of the rainy season, silly.


Before I moved Stateside to be with TLOML he debated relocating back to his former stamping ground, San Francisco. I was tempted, as San Francisco is, unlike LA, an actual city with a beating heart and public transport. I did some hard thinking. In the end, LA won, because it has beaches and famously good weather. And if one's going to abandon dear dear London for a year. one needs a beach and plenty of sunshine to ward off homesickness.

It wasn't until the decision had been made that I discovered LA has as much rain in a year as London. Horrors! But TLOML clarified that it is quite unlike the rain in London, which spitter spatters down willynilly throughout the year, the clouds not pausing to consider whether it might be considered summer down on the ground.

No, in LA, I was told, the rain all occurs within the 'rainy season' in January and February. Ah, the rainy season! What a good idea. Herd all the rain clouds up and release them over a short window of time. So much more predictable and manageable.

When we had torrential rain for 3 days in late December I commented 'I guess the rainy season came early this year.'
'No,' insisted TLOML. 'This is not the rainy season yet.'

Hmmm. And when the sky chucked newsworthy buckets of rain down on us on Sunday, I said 'Wow, this is some rainy season rain.' Only to be told 'It's March. The rainy season's over.'

So I ask you, when it rains in a rainy-season style, outside of the rainy season, is it just regular old rain? 'Cos it sure as eggs is eggs did not feel like regular old London style rain to me.


PS One might ask the same question about the legendary June Gloom (a marine layer of misty cloud that sits over LA). When it's gloomy in May, or July, what is that called? Which reminds me of an observation a Fog City friend of ours made, when we were debating marine layers, smog, and the haze that sits over the Valley.

 'Like Eskimos for snow', he mused, 'Los Angelenos have more words for poor air quality than anyone else on earth'.

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