Paffer

Having watched the BBC series Mayo and really enjoyed it (lovely gentle detective series along the lines of Agatha Christie) I thought I'd have a go at some of the books (by Marjorie Eccles). Reading what I think is the first one I came across the phrase "the rain paffered against the window." Assumed this to be typo at first, but I then wondered whether it might actually be a new word to me, so I looked it up on Wikipedia. No results sadly so I'm putting it down to a typo, but what a great word it would be! I can almost imagine it - the sound of rain when it's not hard droplets but more like a mist or spray, like you get on your windscreen on wet roads. To paffer. Great.