The air smells weird after a rain.

[ElleTea]

Originally Posted by Steve-o

Id have to disagree, I think the rain scent here is extremely sweet smelling, almost like butterscotch mixed with rain. I love it!

I hate butterscotch! HAHA Maybe that is what the deal is.

Sweet isn't how I would describe it at all. It's just a STENCH. Like a dank, musty basement.

[Steve-o]

Originally Posted by ElleTea

I hate butterscotch! HAHA Maybe that is what the deal is.

Sweet isn't how I would describe it at all. It's just a STENCH. Like a dank, musty basement.

You hate butterscotch? lol Youre not human! j/k

Dank, musty basements reek. The rain scent here is sweet. I dont think they smell remotely the same.

[izatrini]

I mentioned this same thing to my husband last week. Definitely smells...different. Lol

[urbex]

Originally Posted by ElleTea

I hate butterscotch! HAHA Maybe that is what the deal is.

Sweet isn't how I would describe it at all. It's just a STENCH. Like a dank, musty basement.

Originally Posted by Steve-o

You hate butterscotch? lol Youre not human! j/k

Dank, musty basements reek. The rain scent here is sweet. I dont think they smell remotely the same.

Hahaha....I AM from the east (Detroit area, specifically), and I love the smell of rain there and here, and definitely can tell the difference. One isn't better than the other, but there is a definite difference. Then again, I also like the smell of dank, musty buildings too, though in small doses. Kinda like people who like the smell of diesel or gasoline....wouldn't want to be surrounded by the stuff all the time, but the occasional whiff is pleasant.

[locolobo13]

Our perception of smells are often subjective. I like the smell after a rain here most of the time. Often when we smell something memories of what we experienced when we smelled that odor before comes back. Sometimes it is good sometimes not.

The post about people liking the smell of diesel and gas fumes brought this back to me. In the 90s I was working with iso-octane sometimes. The smell always brought back memories of cigarette buts. Iso-octane smells nothing like cigarette buts. But I would remember the old Phillips 66 Service Station at 35th Ave & Encanto that I would stop in at on my home from school.

The guys there were always smoking and I suppose there must have been a lot of fuel spilled in the bays. They were always friendly to the kids, never to busy to stop and talk, so I wasn't the only one to stop there from time to time. To me that smell always brings back those memories from the late 60s. While I don't really find the smell pleasing neither do I find it stinking.

Back to the smell after a rain. It depends. Sometimes it only rains enough to stir up the dust, pollen or other particulates. Sometimes it cleans all of that out of the air. There is always something different each time and in each place.

[Leaving Arizona]

One of my favorite smells ever is the air in my desert after a rain. At our farewell dinner a few weeks ago, a friend gave me a sprig of creosote (also referred to as greasewood) in a baggie. I tucked it into my family binder and every time I've opened it in the last two weeks it makes me happy. The smell creeps through the plastic; it's awesome.

And actually it's not even the bush itself you are smelling after a rain! It's the litter underneath it decomposing you're smelling. That might explain those people who don't have a single creosote around but still can get the smell after a heavy rain - the bush is gone but the oils and things in the soil is still there.

[WriterDude]

To me, when it rains, it always smells like my grampa's barn in Michigan. It's a funny musty-but-not-unhealthy smell.

I also love that you can smell rain clouds coming in, and if you look across the valley, you can see the rain falling under the clouds. It looks like they're wearing veils that haven't quite reached the ground.

[Bungle]

Originally Posted by WriterDude

To me, when it rains, it always smells like my grampa's barn in Michigan. It's a funny musty-but-not-unhealthy smell.

I also love that you can smell rain clouds coming in, and if you look across the valley, you can see the rain falling under the clouds. It looks like they're wearing veils that haven't quite reached the ground.

You have a way with words...should be a writer!

[WriterDude]

Originally Posted by Bungle

You have a way with words...should be a writer!

LOL... thank you. I buy my words at Costco, too. :-)

When I was little, I used to sit in the back seat of my parents' car on long drives and imagine that the trees were doing pirouettes as we passed. Now that I'm an adult and do most of the driving, normally I can't watch the trees long enough for them to twirl, and a little bit of magic leaves my world. Of course, it was just my changing perspective, but that's kinda deep, too. :-)

So from time to time, I call shotgun just because.