“Rain brings us together in one of the last untamed encounters with nature that we experience routinely, able to turn the suburbs and even the city wild. Huddled with our fellow humans under construction scaffolding to escape a deluge, we are bound in the memory and mystery of exhilarating, confounding, life-giving rain.”

“As children we learn that water is old and constant; we drink the same water the dinosaurs did. But in rain, water feels as new as these drops as they float from the treetops—Earth’s essence reborn in every drop.”

Seattle and Portland are blanketed by clouds about 230 days a year, compared with 160 in Boston and 120 in sunny Miami.

“Changizi and Weber hypothesized that smooth fingertips give humans the best grip in dry times, but wrinkly ones might help us hang on when it’s wet. … Magnified, our finger wrinkles look like drainage channels: rain chiseling a landscape for thousands of years.”

“England’s Great Famine of 1315-1322 is one of the few ascribed largely to unremitting rains. Without harvest, people became so hungry they turned to eating dogs, cats, and horses.”

Storms kept King James from marrying Anna of Denmark which he believed were conjured by witches; started massive witch hunt in 1500s; Shakespeare became royal company and wrote witch-themed Macbeth accordingly.

Monotheism of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism all grew out of the arid sands of the Middle East. Some historians trace monotheism to agriculturists in these dry lands looking to the sky for lifegiving rainfall. Most of the polytheistic religions were born in the soaking monsoons. … “In the wilderness of the desert, where life struggles to survive, it would seem logical that a divine being would be responsible for the creation of living things out of nothing, and that in due course time and life will end in a final day of Judgment,” writes the geoscientist Peter Clift. “In contrast, in the forested land that has grown under the influence of summer monsoon rains, life is everywhere and abundant. Tropical forests teem with life and the cycle of birth, life, and death are endlessly replayed, resulting in a theology that does not emphasize a beginning or end to creation.”

The International Cloud Atlas, codified in 1896, is still the official identification guide. “On the 1896 list, the king of clouds—towering cumulonimbus—was listed number nine. This is why, when we feel the highest of high, we say that we are on Cloud Nine.”

British naval captain Fitzroy in 1859 developed “forecast” to alert public and ship captains to coming weather. Committed suicide three years later amidst pressure to be accurate; led to ban on public forecasts (ship-salvage companies had also complained to Parliament they were being put out of business).

Charles Macintosh was a counting house apprentice who quit to pursue passion of chemistry and experimenting with substances. Converted pitch substance into “thin, transparent honey” which he spread between two pieces of fabric and pressed together to create first flexible and waterproof mac in 1822.

Morton salt slogan “When it rains, it pours” meant to signify it would pour even in damp weather due to anti-caking agent.

Outgoing agriculture secretary Jeremiah Rusk declared in 1893 rainmaking would go down “among the curiosities so-called scientific investigation, in company with its twin absurdity, the flying machine.”

“Scientists say frogs are bioindicators; their well-being reflects the environment’s. Because they require both land and aquatic habitat, and have permeable skin that easily absorbs toxins, they are faithful signals of ecological havoc.”