I learned a new word today: virga. It was used in a short article in one of the Sydney newspapers, discussing yesterday’s weather. Virga is simply precipitation that evaporates before it hits the ground, and we had some here yesterday. So it was raining, but we didn’t get wet.
Virga can rapidly cool the air around it, causing downdrafts in the atmosphere which then heat as the pressure increases nearer the ground. Personally, I didn’t notice anything particularly bizarre, but then again I was indoors for most of the day.
There’s a nice video of virga on youtube.