Rain
We went to visit family on Easter weekend. Saturday was warm, but rainy, so we had the door to my in-laws' sunroom open to catch a breeze. It was pleasant to hear the rain hit the metal roof and feel the cool breeze.
According to Google, Topeka gets about 37” of rain a year. Illinois, where we grew up, gets about 38” of rain per year. So, comparable in terms of the total amount of rain. New Orleans, on the other hand, gets 63” per year on average. Not only do they get about twice as much rain as here, but when it does rain, it is almost always a beating rainstorm. Here, we get a few downpours, but most of the time it is gentler.
I remember one time, when we lived there and visited our family in Illinois, we arrived in light rain and commented how nice it was to experience a gentle rain.
One year, in New Orleans, it rained more than 6” in one hour around quitting time. Luckily, I was driving a small SUV. You see, New Orleans, geographically, is a big bowl where they must pump out the rainwater when it comes. Raining 6” in one hour overwhelmed the pumping capacity and a lot of vehicles couldn’t make it home for several hours.
“Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak, and let the earth hear the words of my mouth. May my teaching drop as the rain, my speech distill as the dew, like gentle rain upon the tender grass, and like showers upon the herb. For I will proclaim the name of the Lord; ascribe greatness to our God!” - Deuteronomy 32:1-3 ESV
“For in seven days I will send rain on the earth forty days and forty nights, and every living thing that I have made I will blot out from the face of the ground.” And Noah did all that the Lord had commanded him. In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened. And rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights.” - Genesis 7:4-5, 11-12
Like a lot of things, we appreciate and even enjoy a gentle rain and struggle to remember how devastating it can be in excess.
