Word for the day: diluvial

Here in Seattle, we are on our third day of freakishly rainy weather. I know, you're thinking, doesn't it always rain out there by you people? And the answer is yes, sort of, but this is different. First of all, it doesn't rain consistently all year - we have wet periods and dry periods. And secondly, much of the year we get a lovely light mist, like we're vegetables in the produce section at the grocery store.

There's usually rain in the spring, but the last three days have alternated - hour by hour - between cheerful sun and menacing black clouds, between lashing winds and calm, all punctuated by periods of pouring, pounding, drenching sheets of rain. There have been thunderstorms too, which happen maybe once a year here and in many years not even that - somehow our topography just doesn't lend itself to lightning.

The weirdness isn't just the weather, it's the way it changes every hour. I arrive at a 12:00 meeting in pouring rain, but meet a friend at 2:30 to go running in gorgeous sunshine. I call my dogwalker at 1:00 to tell him I'm home and he's welcome to skip that day given the miserable rain, but he shows up at 2:00 and it's sunny.

It's good for our drought, of course, because all this rain is still, even at this late date, creating snow up in the mountains. But it's unnerving anyway. Thankfully, we have somebody else's canoe hanging in our carport in case we need to make a watery getaway.