Getting the real story with Portland and its annual rainfall is about as tough as getting the real story form BP about what is going on with the oil spill. Ever since I moved here people have told me, “It’s not usually this rainy. This is the fourth wettest May on record.” Or, “This is the wettest fall we’ve ever had, normally it’s not this bad.”
I do know that since I arrived in Portland, I have supposedly lived through the wettest day in Oregon’s history (since they started keeping track), the wettest November, the third wettest May, and a June where we received the entire month’s average rainfall in the first three days.
For a city that loves the rain, this spring seems to be testing everyone’s love affair with precipitation.
Yes, rain makes everything green and lush and without it we would not have the wonderful growing season that we do. But at the same time, for me, it’s getting really old. I want some sun, and I want it for more than one day.
Yesterday, while out walking my dog, I was caught in a torrential downpour. By the time I walked the 30, or so, blocks back to my house, I was completely saturated, even my boxers felt like I had just jumped into a pool. But just at the rain started to really come down, I made eye contact with a person riding by on her bike. She didn’t have any rain gear on and she was getting soaking wet, but she had this look on her face, like, “Isn’t this kind of fun!?” And I looked back with a smirk, like, “Kind of.”
