It Isn't Just Your House/Neighborhood/Town!

Everyone's perception of rain/snow "splitting before it gets to us."
(click to enlarge)  Cartoon courtesy of xkcd.com/831/

It seems that, from coast to coast, I get asked about whether there is some feature that "causes the weather to split" in the questioner's locality. Of course, there are areas like the Hawaiian Islands where the upwind side of the islands get a lot of rain and the leeward sides get less. This is normal in mountainous terrain. This discussion is about the flatlands.

Here in Wichita, the culprit that causes "the Wichita split" is believed by many to be the confluence of the Arkansas and Little Arkansas Rivers downtown. But, these splits rarely exist.

Thunderstorm twenty miles from my backyard.

The problem is that we can see more weather than we experience.  For example, take three equally-sized thunderstorms that move across exactly one third of your county at one hour intervals. Everyone receives the same amount of rain.  Yet, you'll likely perceive you "missed out." Why? Because you saw three thunderstorms but only experienced one of them.

Yes, there are such things as random "pocket droughts" where areas (by coincidence) miss out on a number of rains and local dry conditions develop. Over time, those even out.