First rainy day in six months!

Rain in Austin, what do you know?

It did rain since I arrived here (and even snow), but I don't think we've had anything that would qualify as a "rainy day": most of the rain was really a light drizzle, and always after midnight. It was almost as if Austin rain was specially commissioned for environmental purposes, so regular and unobtrusive it was.

But today we've had the actual experience of needing an umbrella to go to class. Now this feels more like home to me.

In Rio Grande do Sul (South of Brazil), temperatures are quite similar to Austin (a bit colder, in fact), but the weather is pretty unpredictable. As far back as the 19th century we've had this saying that the Brazilian South had all four seasons in one day, and things haven't changed much since then, apparently. The most regular our weather gets is a crescendo of heat, with each day hotter than the previous one, until after five or six days it pours dramatically. That "heat cluster" happens pretty often, though it is not rare for it to be broken by a cloudy or even a cold, windy day.

But I had other reasons to appreciate the rain today: it made me feel like enjoying this cold weather a bit more, before Summer kicks in and we're boiling in our own sweat again.