September is almost here, so the phone launch avalanche I warned you about last week is about to start, and also: rain. Lots of it. Gear Patrol just rounded up 12 new waterproof shoes for the wet-weather season, and per the roundup the spread covers every style and budget, from Gore-Tex trail runners to fully sealed leather boots.

The range is what gets me. There's the technical stuff, membranes laminated into trail runners that keep weight down while shrugging off puddles, and then lifestyle sneakers that quietly added a waterproof layer so you can wear them to the office without soggy socks. The boot tier is its own thing: full-grain leather uppers, sealed seams, storm welts, the whole old-school toolkit for people who actually stand outside in November.

I'd look at the Gore-Tex options first. The membrane works a lot like the gaskets in a decent IP-rated gadget: water can't get through as a liquid, but water vapor from your sweat can escape, so your feet stay dry from both directions. Same physics problem phone engineers solve with pressure-equalizing vents, just applied to footwear. Cheap waterproof shoes in my experience usually skip the breathable part, and then you've traded wet-from-rain for wet-from-sweat, which is somehow worse. Your mileage may vary.

Budget-wise the roundup claims to cover the whole map, and I believe it, but Gear Patrol doesn't list specific prices in the summary, so click through before you assume anything fits your number. The buy-cheap-versus-buy-once calculus works out differently for everyone. I own hiking boots older than some of my coworkers because I paid once and maintained them, but I also own cheap waterproof sneakers I beat on daily and they've earned their keep. Neither answer is wrong.

Timing matters here, in my opinion at least. My rule of thumb has always been that if you know your fall involves standing in the rain, buying early beats gambling on a January deal, because popular sizes disappear first. Treat that as advice from a guy who's been burned, not as retail data.

Check the full list over at Gear Patrol for the specific models and prices. Worth asking yourself before you click though: are you buying waterproof because you need it, or because the marketing got you? I've done both. Only one of them leaves boots sitting unworn in a closet...