On Rain

Fog in town? No rain, coming down in sheets

It’s raining today in Beirut. It’s coming down in buckets. Not a big deal if you’re from Holland, you’d think. In Holland it rains all the time. 

But here it rains a little differently. Here it seems to come down all at once. Umbrellas are a bit of a joke in those moments (it’s always in short spurts); it rains right through umbrellas and catapults from the sidewalk back up, so that the rain is not just coming from up, but coming from down as well. You don't know the meaning of 'soaked by the rain' until you've been caught outdoors by a thunder storm in this town. 

In Holland, it rains 217 days a year (more than 0.1 mm), although some source keep it at 185. And in those days, we get about 76 centimeters.

In Lebanon, on the other hand, we only have 80 rainy days a year. That’s considerably less. And so you’d assume we get less rain as well. Uhhh, no. in Lebanon, there’s about 86 centimeters of rain that falls on us. That’s some 10 centimeters more.

Sun's coming through already

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that when it rains here, it RAINS. Big fat thick drops. It comes down in buckets. I am not complaining though; I am taking this picture from inside the house.