Originally posted by Celestica

I guess I was a little too quick with my reply. You do present a good point - although like I said the flora and fauna in the area would be affected too. The plants would wilt or die - I would say the animals would seek shelter and hide but animals kinda do that when it rains anyway.

There do seem to be more leaves/branches dying than normal. Almost like burn marks on the leaves. Not from fall though

My animals ( Huskies ) love the damn rain... they frolic in it, so at least my animals don't hide from the rain. I try to keep em out of it as much as possible though... just in case.

Danno

There seems to be a misconception on "radioactive fallout" here. Radioactive particles are heavy for their size. When they were doing above ground nuclear testing, the force of the blast would put a quantity of very fine radioactive particles high in the atmosphere. There they could get picked up by the jet stream and travel long distances. The reactor breach in Japan didn't have the explosion necessary to sent it's particles high enough to travel very far.

As far as the stinging rain is concerned, what has Mt. St. Helen's been up to lately? It is possible that the air could have been high in either nitrates or sulfides, which could have caused them to be acidic. That could have caused your discomfort and would explain the oxidized lawn furniture.