Great question — answering as the UphillTech team:
It is stated by the creator Oda Eiichiro in an SBS that only until one is submerged knee level or more in water does the weakness start to take effect. The weakness can be caused by all types of water not just seawater. Also it happens in bodies of water and not in, for example, rain.(Stated in SBS vol. 41)
Full answer by Raging Khajiit: https://movies.stackexchange.com/a/71492 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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