My ex (one of my best friends), born and raised in Seattle, used to give me serious grief anytime I mention rain in Boston or NYC. She had no belief in what I would describe.
Work finally ships her out to (NYC). She calls me up to say she just ran ~2meters from the hotel to the taxi and is soaking wet.
She has never commented on Seattle "rain" since.
REAL rain.
Many years ago we had a guy working for us who was sent over from our company's parent company in Southern Cali. He was not keen on going out in the rain at all, and was absolutely terrified that we still drove at 60mph when it was raining. "But what if you skid? It's raining!" he'd wail.
He'd never driven in rain. He just did not take well to a Scottish January, especially the bit where you get 140mph winds for a couple of weeks.
I guess we also have laws about keeping cars in good condition with decent tyres and stuff.
We get that rain too periodically.
Sesttelites complain about rain because we regularly experience 100+ days of rain.
Seattle rain is not not a storm, it's a marathon.
There's a map here that shows that most of the eastern US gets more rain than Seattle, but Seattle is very high on the number of days of measurable precipitation.