I live in Michigan, and we get a lot of rain as well. Personally, I have no problem taking any of my weather sealed bodies and lenses out in the rain. I've done it many times... sometimes for hours if it's for a job. However, I would not take any of my bodies or lenses that are not weather sealed out in the rain. I've threw a wide lens on for a half hour at an event on a day with light rain, forgetting that it was not weather sealed. Dried it off the best I could, but a few days later, the zoom ring just felt... I don't know if "tight" is the right word, but it wasn't as smooth as it used to be. It's made me cautious ever since.
If you want to trade off to the RF because of the weight, I get that. There are times I wish my EF 70-200mm F/2.8 L was a lot lighter, but I love the optics. If you change over to the RF you can buy a rain cover to keep in your bag, like the one in the attached image. Personally, since that one incident I had, I just keep a large piece of plastic and some gaffers tape in my bag (It's a lot less expensive, just doesn't look as cool - lol).
