Rainy; snowy

[shane]

A teacher asked me today: "Do we say rainier, or more rainy?; snowier or more snowy?"

I couldn't think which one sounded better - none of them sounded right to me! However, my Oxford dictionary lists 'rainier', but not 'snowier'.

I would usually say (or hear someone say) something like:
"The rain / snow is heavier than it was yesterday"
"There was a greater snow/rainfall yesterday, than there was last week"
"Yesterday was rainy, but today the rain is heavier"

Any opinions?

[RonBee]

"Rainy days and Mondays always get me down."
--The Carpenters

A teacher asked me today: "Do we say rainier, or more rainy?; snowier or more snowy?"

I wouldn't use "more rainy", tho perhaps some people would. Most commonly, neither "rainier" nor "more rainy" are used to describe wet weather. We would say, for example, "June was a wetter month than May" or "We got more rain in June than we got in May."

8)

[Tdol]

I suppose that 'snowier' sounds strange because we don't use it much in England as we don't have much snow to compare. I wonder whether a Canadian would use it.