[ThomasThomas]

Years ago I got to go Juneau on the USS Juneau (LPD-10) from San Diego. It was a tiger cruise with my brother-in-law. It took us two weeks but we spent at least one day doing circles off the course of Oregon.

There is more than one word for rain?

[sionnsar]

There is definitely more than one word for rain. Up here, "rain" is not only the generic term for precipitation but it also indicates a specific rate.

Several times over the years I've started to compile a list, but it always goes down the drain. The terms include not only the amount of rain but sometimes its steadiness.

Starting at the light end we have mist and drip, continuing with drizzle (light, medium and heavy), and further up rain (L-H), shower (L-H), downpour(-H) and cloudburst, and runforit.

Just kidding about the last. "Gullywasher" is used elsewhere but we don't often get that heavy a rainfall. The usual range here is drizzle to rain.

[sionnsar]

Found some more here: blast burst cascade cloudburst deluge downpour drips droplets drops flood inundation rain raindrops rivulet torrent trickle showers sluice spatter squall

We don't use all of these here.