When you don't use 'the', your sentence is just a general statement. "I hate rain." means you hate all rain, and you hate it all the time. "I hate the rain." means you hate that rain, such as rain that is falling right now and, for example, stopping you from playing outside.

Lee, Snow is one of those nouns which can be either countable or non-countable. As a NON-COUNTABLE noun it can refer generically to one flake of snow or to all of the snow in the world. I hate snow. It can also refer to a specific concrete snow and take the definite article. Yesterday we created snow in the laboratory. I love the snow that we created yesterday in the lab. As a COUNTABLE noun ‘snow’ can refer to a concrete snowfall, mass*, field, or expanse of snow. We had a good snow last night. We played in the snow on the golf course. The snows of Kilimanjaro…..Where have the snows of winter gone? Like all countable nouns it can also be used to refer to a generic snow. I hate the *snow. I love a good snow. ----- If you don’t KNOW whether the listener/reader knows what you are referring to, then you DON’T use the definite article.

set fire to the rain...poetic...

All natural phenomena can take the article "the" without any change in meaning. In this example: 1. Everybody know what now is (definite) 2. Is is also a general thing that can be liked or disliked (no article) This can be said of all daily natural phenomena: the wind; the rain; the sunshine; the moonlight; etc.