If you are living in Sydney, you understand the pain of January, which tends to oscillate between insane humidity and brutal thunderstorms. No in-between. Which do you prefer?
We were having this argument today in the office. Personally, I hate rain more than anything in this world, but Lifehacker’s Angus Kidman claims that rain is preferable to brutal, shirt soaking humidity. I disagree.
What are your thoughts? I understand that rain gives us all a perfect excuse to sit at home and play video games all day, but those depressing gray skies, getting soaked every time you leave the house. It’s not worth it. Brutal.
Comments
37 responses to “The Big Question: Rain Or Humidity”
I Don’t live there, but i prefer a nice Heavy Rain to a high Fahrenheit and humidity.
Rain, definitely rain. I hate humidity, going outside and my sungalsses immediately fog up, also no one likes a sweaty arse crack.
As someone who lived in Vancouver, for a year seeing only about 10 days of sun, I’ve grown to love the rain.
This is coming from living in Darwin, which is a pretty notable difference than Sydney’s ‘rain’. We’re getting around 80%+ humidity every day right now, and the rain makes the outside at least somewhat bearable. But on the other hand, our rain is warm, whereas in the eastern states rain is cold.
As a person who has lived in Sydney, Brisbane, and cairns, I feel compelled to say ‘suck it up Sydneysiders’
The humidity in Sydney is nothing compared to Brisbane and Cairns, I regularly get up at 4am in Brisbane and it will be 25C + with over 85% humidity, 80% is the standard through most of summer, and than Cairns is worse. Sydney is relatively comfortable in comparison.
PS: I’m about to move to Adelaide, let’s see what it serves up for summer time.
It gets hot, but at least the humidity is pretty low.
Yep, gotta love swimming through that f***ing humidity early in the morning :\
‘Swimming’ is right. If you’re not talking about swimming through the air, you could also be referring to commuters swimming through their clothing. So much sweat.
I don’t know anyone who prefers humidity over anything. Mark, you’re weird.
I enjoy a good rain storm.
Overly humid days make me hate everything.
Oh man what a choice. I hate the cold and wet… but humidity is what makes the heat unbearable.
I’d probably side with rain I guess. At least it waters the garden 😛
As these options are not mutually exclusive and can often go together during summer, I fail to see the logic in presenting them as a dichotomy. But, for the sake of picking one, I prefer rain.
Rain. All day, everyday.
I freaking hate humidity. Can’t stand it. At all. I even use the dehumidifier setting that our split system has on the odd Humid day we have here in Adelaide.
The rain. It’s raining today and it’s a nice cool change from the 35+ degree days with the 80%+ humidity we have been having.
Even though it was 40+ degrees at a mates farm out west, the lack of humidity made it bearable. The few 40+ degree days we had here in January last year were shit. Was even more shit having to work in an unaiconditioned bottle shop with a drive through..
Move to Brisbane Mark, you’ll discover proper humidity 😛 (queue comments telling me to move up to Cairns 😀 )
Rain for sure. You can always seek cover during rain and warm up if it’s cold. Humidity you can’t escape from.
Correction, air conditioning, best if it is someone elses and not yours.
True, but not everyone has access to air conditioning.
The local shopping centre, cinemas, servo, pub, club, bottle shop? All those near me have air con D=
But that involves passing through the big room with a blue (or grey) ceiling!
I prefer rain. If I’m indoors without aircon, there’s absolutely no competition. If I’m inside WITH aircon, it doesn’t matter. And if I’m outside, I prefer to get slightly damp from rain than slightly damp from sweat.
What can really be fun, if you’re in the mood, is to be outdoors when it’s raining cats and dogs – when the world is a descending wall of water. Leave your gadgets at home, obviously, and don’t use your umbrella.
I first found this can be fun years ago when I was on my way home in a heavy rain and stepped into an inadequately covered service manhole (the things used by Telstra techs) that looked like a puddle but had one of my legs in water to my thigh. After a horrible day, it capped off my sense of the ridiculous and had me laughing and soaked for the rest of my walk home.
The only time humidity is acceptable is in a sauna and even then I’m still trying to figure out why people like saunas.
Poems about people liking rain? thousands, what about humidity? probably none.
Ah, humidity
Armpits sweating endlessly
Wet brow in the sun.
There you go. Oh, hang on, that doesn’t actually praise humidity, try this one:
Humidity rules!
The glory of sweaty days
and joy of moist nights
Rain stuff humidity it’s terrible !!! Especially here in Cairns gud thing for Air Con
I enjoy Heavy Rain
‘Twas a good game.
Twas
I sweat a lot in a dry heat – high temp and high humidity? Torture. Give me a good thunderstorm – not only does it lower the humidity in the long run, it also brings the temperature down to a reasonable level. Plus, the sound of rain pattering off the roof is kinda relaxing.
Rain is best. Miss the monsoon season from when I lived in papua.
Well, rain at the end of a hot day makes it very humid…so…
Who the heck likes humidity?
Probably those weird people who do not sweat..
Sunday night thunderstorm at the end of a super sunny weekend when you have a good Sunday dinner all ready and a good movie to press play on. Predator or the like.
Outstanding.
Humidity. Sticking to the couch, never comfortable, always feel like you have a layer of grime all over you. Can taste the air. No thanks. Not now. Not ever.
Sunny cold weather is best, but rain over humidity 100%. Gross.
So, I’m guessing Mark’s one of those people who prefer heat to cold, huh? One of those weirdos who think sweating is better than goosebumps (@mrtaco I’m looking at you!), or one of those mutant freaks who just doesn’t sweat at all? So weird.
Not that humid in Perth but too bloody hot. I’d take winter over summer every day of the year.
Mark, I’m absolutely certain you spend your days and nights in air-conditioning – so you’re not really feeling that humidity anyway. And you seriously would be about the only person who would prefer humidity to rain as other commenters have noted.