Why do you consider rain to be “bad weather”? Would you rather live in the Sahara Desert?
Welcome to the Straight Dope Message Boards, Madame, glad to have you here.
It’s helpful to other posters if you provide a link to the Column you’re discussing – saves search time, and keeps us all on the same page (so to speak.) In this case, I presume: Do big cities make the weather worse? - The Straight Dope
I don’t think Cecil was saying that rain is crappy weather compared to desert, I think he was saying that MORE rain than was usual/normal is crappy.
We all love a temperate, sunny day. Low-ish humidity, slight breeze, comfortable temperate. Any deviation from that could be considered “bad weather.” He mentioned that heat, etc are worse in the city, more rain/snow, etc.
To correct Cecil; the interference of pollution particulates is not necessarily correlated with an increase in rainfall. Depending upon the nature of these nuclei they can also reduce the amount that occurs (cite). Dust is also a relatively poor form of cloud condensation nuclei (CCN), or indeed counter-productive in terms precipitation. Combustion products, sulphuric acid and nitric acid particles, and salts are much more effective as CCN (cite). The numerous complexities of this atmospheric science are part of reason why cloud-seeding has proved so difficult to reliably execute outside of the laboratory.
The column also fails to mention the interesting and arguably worsening effects that building topography and arrangement can have on the air flow regimes which surround them. There are numerous journal articles available in the field to source an addendum from.