After dark yesterday, I heard the mild rumble of thunder off in the distance. Had rain been forecast? I hadn’t checked. Turned out, it was, and soon we got heavy rain that lasted an hour or so. Not much more thunder, though.

At about 9:30 I parked myself on the couch in the living room and listened to the pleasant rainfall. I had my audio recording device handy.

Then it occurred to me that my roof and walls were muffling the robustness of the falling water. So I got up — it was an effort — and stood just outside the front door for a short time.

The best version of rain-sound is between those two, achieved by opening a window during a heavy rain and listening from somewhere a little removed from the window. But I didn’t test this idea last night. Instead, I went back to the couch for a leisurely while.