Hey Chris, I turned off the extra cylinder mesh that had the distance material applied to it and replaced it with gpu particle rain in hopes to optimize the effect. Open the particle system VFX_Weather_Rain_Heavy_Local (man who the hell made these names? >.< lol). Turn on the Distance Rain Emitter, that will put the mesh back into the system you are looking for. Keep in mind that it will decrease performance as it is one giant alpha call across the whole view.
