notice the language the author has used to describe rain and dust

This is the only text evidence I can find in Chapter Five that supports the "effects" of rain (drying mud puddles) and dust (red dirt).

"Lining the road were strips of red dirt splotched with patches of brown grass and drying mud puddles, and beyond the dirt and the mud puddles, gloomy store buildings set behind raised wooden sidewalks and sagging verandas."