

I don’t know why besstiolle is getting downvoted when they are correct.
When people say that there is very little of something the natural way is “hardly any rain” for example. So if you invert the meaning from “any” to “none”/“no” the whole sentence means the opposite.
I guess it could be explained as follows (but I am no ethymologist, just thinking aloud here, may be wrong):
“hardly any rain” means that there is so little of it, it is hard to even say that there is any rain.
If your friend says to you “There is no rain” and you go outside and it pouring, you could say 'Hardly “no rain!” ’ As a kind of mocking comment highlighting that it’s the complete opposite of no rain. It is very hard to call is “no rain” when it’s raining so much.
Hope this helps!



You kinda answered your own question.
What you should do:
There may be some quick and dirty workaround, but I didn’t find one when searching online.