What is Rain?

I've recently (in my studies of the Noah's ark and the flood) began to wonder whether or not there had ever been rain before the "big flood" of Noah's day. I've come across some different points of view but I'll do my best to express them both in hopes of feeding the curiosity of the reader to want to study into it.

Based on the verse in Hebrews where is says:

Hebrews 11:7 By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.

It can be easily interprited that there had not been rain before. Let's break it down. Noah was warned by God about something that would happen that he had never seen before, and in faith and fear, built an ark to save his family and home.

I've believed in the past that this was talking about "rain." That the "things not seen as yet" were referring to rain. However, with more thinking outside the box... I can't help but wonder... maybe it was a "flood" that had never been seen... not neccessarily "rain." Maybe all the people knew what rain was but never really had a lot of it, therefore doubted a so called "flood."

If there had never been rain, how were there fields, crops, plants, trees, etc... What did the animals eat? What did they drink? I know what you're thinking... so did I. There were lakes, streams, rivers, springs... but all of these things (other than the ocean/sea are caused by rain). It rains, flows down the hills and land, forming streams/rivers, leading to lakes and ponds. Without the rain, there would be no stream/river and be no lakes/ponds. We all know you can't drink ocean water. I mean, if there was an ocean, there would be evaporation, which means there would be clouds, which would mean there would be precipitation (rain, snow, etc..).

Maybe there were springs. People drank from springs where water came up from the earth. But how did the plants survive? Trees, crops and so forth. To my understanding there was a great "dew" that fell every night/morning (the Bible actually refers to it as a "mist" that came up from the ground in Genesis 2:4-6). This dew supposedly watered the entire earth, as some believe, all the way up to the point of the flood.

The Bible, to my knowledge thus far, doesn't really say specifically that there was no rain before the flood. It does state, however, that there was no rain before Adam and Eve but not before the flood. The "things not seen as yet" mentioned in Hebrews could have been referring to "rain" or it could have actually been referring to a "flood."

Any thoughts?