Initially compiled Winter 2013 for CPHM Local Historians Project, Kathleen Sayce
Work in progress! New idioms appear regularly.
Background:
This started as a very short list to illustrate the range of rains that I often hike in, for my first published list of plants growing in Clatsop and Pacific Counties, 1998.
Very quickly I found that there were many terms for rain. English being an innovative and dynamic language, our use of words is constantly changing. Also, phrases that started into use in the Pacific Northwest are spreading rapidly around the world. I stopped counting at 120 words and phrases.
The weather service, in its desire to standardize the use of weather terms, keeps redefining and expanding its vocabulary, including use of terms like ‘sun break’ and ‘pineapple express’—the latter is now called atmospheric river.
This list is updated regularly. It was first shared in 2013 with the very first Community Historians Class at CPHM.
How does Rain Happen?
The process is always the same: Warm air holds more moisture than cold air. When a warm air mass cools off, rain drops form and when they get large enough to fall (gravity pulls on them), it rains.
Cooling happens one of two ways:
Warm air rises, and cools as it does so, by going up over mountains. Oreographic rain results, which is very common in our area.
Or, warm air masses collide with cool air masses. This is common in the Great Plains and Midwest. We occasionally get air mass collision rain here.
Rain categories:
Fogs and Mists:
The difference is visibility, to a meteorologist. ‘Fog’ if visibility is below 1 km or 1100 yards; otherwise it’s ‘mist’. Both tend to have very fine small droplets of water, with no or little discernible downward direction––droplets seem to float in the air.
Meteorology terms for types of fog:
Radiation Fog––cooling of land after sunset, condensation of water vapor produces fog that can be less than 3 ft deep, usually lasts overnight and disperses in morning. Ground fog is a synonym
Advection Fog––moist air passes over a cool surface, such as a warm front passing over a snow pack in the mountains, or upwelling cooled water that cools air and produces fog off our coast. Our summer beach fogs are advection fogs.
Up-slope Fog––forms when winds blow up hill and cool, condensing into fog
Dew Effluvium Ground Fog Miasma Murk Nebula Obscurity Pea-souper Smir Smur Socked In Soup
Spray Steam Visibility Zero Vapor Wisp
Terms related to a mix of mist/fog plus air pollution (brown-orange from a distance rather than blue or blue-purple):
Film Gloom Grease Haze London Fog Murkiness Reek Smaze Smog Smoke Smother Vog
Fog or Mists from ocean or other waters:
Brume Fret Hoar Sea Fret
Sea Fog Sea Mist Sea Smoke Steam Fog
Upwelling Fog: comes off the ocean when upwelling is active
Haar [Har, Hare, Harr] : comes up from salt water in morning
Walk-off: used in Australia, meaning that there is no visibility at the airport, thus no flying
The foggiest place in the world [> 250 days per year] is the Grand Banks off Newfoundland, where the Gulf Stream meets the Labrador Current.
Pt Reyes and Cape D both have more than 200 days of fog per year.
Other foggy spots on land include Argentina, Newfoundland, the Po, Arno, and Tiber Valleys in Italy, Ebro Valley in Spain, Hamilton, New Zealand and southern coastal Chile, coastal Namibia, and Nord, Greenland.
Valley Fog, a type of radiation fog, in central valley CA is Tule Fog. This is CA’s most dangerous driving condition, 100 car pileups are typical
Mountain Mists/Fogs: Cloud rain, cloud mist, cloud fog
Gloaming: evening fog that comes down from the hills to lowlands
Cold Fogs where ice forms as fog touches surfaces; driving can be very dangerous under these conditions:
Freezing Fog Frozen Fog Ice Fog Rime Hoar Frost
Hail fog––forms immediately after hail falls—we see this occasionally
Guara Fog, in Chile and Peru, where moisture moving onshore condenses quickly into droplets, forming a transparent mist, drivers must use wipers even though this is nearly invisible.
Rain:
Droplets condense from water vapor in air, and become heavy enough to fall towards earth.
Most rain falls in narrow bands, or fronts, as air masses interact, usually cool with warm, or moving upslope over mountains.
Oreographic rain, such as in our local mountain ranges, results in heavy rain on one side, and a rain shadow on the other. Very pronounced between Forks and Sequim, WA, also between the coast and Puget Sound/Willamette valley, and of course, east of the Cascade Range.
There is also a down-wind Urban Heat Island Affect, where rain increases downwind of large cities.
Phantom Rain (4) does not reach the earth, low humidity with high air temperatures, common in dry seasons and in very dry climates, may include:
Dry Thunderstorms Fall-streak Fall-strike Virga (Spain, Mexico & SW)
Rain under a clear sky (2):
Pineapple Rain: Hawaii, raining when the sky is clear
Light rain has distinct downward fall, reaches earth:
Drizzle Dry Glistening Grizzle Heavy Dew Mauzy Mizzle Skoosh Slick Soft Spit/Spitting Sprinkle
Intermittent rain terms:
Convective Rain
Showery precipitation falls from convective clouds (cumulonimbus or cumulus congestus) and is intermittent.
It can transition seamlessly into constant rain, however, leading to confusing forecasts from the weather service of ‘showers’ when said showers are in fact continuous.
Blurty Cloudburst Flist Flurry Line squall
Rain Squall Showers Sprinkle Squall Sun Shower Volley Intervals between rain events:
Sun break is a unique PNW term. [Did you know that The Dalles counts a day as sunny if the sun is seen sometime/anytime during the day, no matter how briefly?]
Blue Holes: those days- to weeks-long breaks in winter rains, when skies are clear and temperatures in the 60s to 70s and higher, from the south coast of Oregon.
Now, to the wet stuff--Heavy rain terms:
Blasting Blunking Bucketing Cataract Deluge
Dimpsey Dinger Dinging doon Drencher Driving Dumping Firehose Flood Hailing, as in hailing down
Hard Hawd Hig/Id Horizontal Kelsher
Lashing Land-lashing Moor Gallop Pilmer Plashing
Pounding Pouring Sheeting Sleeting Soaking Sopping Spate Spitting Spate Spitting
Strafing Stoating Streaming Teeming Torrential
Rough weather Foul weather
Freshet (heavy rain causes streams to rise in freshets, some use the word to mean the rainfall that creates freshets)
Two Pound Drops: big heavy raindrops
From Scotland, a land well-versed in rain terms:
Dreich (Scottish/Irish: cold, wet dreary weather)
Blashie (Scottish: windy heavy rain)
Doister (Also spelled deaister, dyster)
Horizontal rain in local use (PNW coast) is often accompanied by hand signal
Strafing rain: an even more evocative phrase for those storms that sling water/hail/sleet sideways on the coast
Rain Phrases, when one word won't do:
Great Duck/Fish/Frog Weather, as in ‘A Great Day for _____
Grand soft day
Frog Strangler Stump Thumper Heavy wet Liquid Sunshine
April Showers Periods of Rain Another wet one
No end in sight Never Ending Raining Cats and Dogs Wet Stuff Window washer Gully-washer
Pipeline of moisture Rain pipeline
No wipers Intermittent Wipers Constant Wipers Wipers on
Chucking it down Bucketing down Settle the dust
Keeping the dust down
The heavens opened Pissing down Coming down
No drying out today Lifting the slates Heavy wet
Raining pitchforks and hammer handles
Raining grandmothers & walking sticks
To stoat off the ground
Raining like a cow peeing on a flat rock
Perry (Also spelled parrey, parry, pirrie, pirry): A sudden, heavy fall of rain; a squall in England, sometimes referred to as ‘half a gale’.
Salamander Rain (late winter rain, air temperature above 40F, when salamanders head for breeding areas)
Summer monsoon (warm, intense summer rain)
Water runs uphill (in heavy wind-driven rain, water flows up several feet into buildings, causing leaks)
Oregon Mist (missed Oregon and hit Washington, or when raining in Oregon–pioneer definition when the entire Pacific Northwest region was called Oregon Territory)
Salmon swim in air (so much atmospheric moisture –‘thick wet air’– that salmon get lost, leave streams and swim in the air through forests, from Northwest tribes)
Condition of those out in rain (7):
Damp Drenched Drookit Saturated Soaked
Wringing wet Wet as a duck
Thunderstorms => rain, hail, lightning, and thunder
When warm and cold air masses collide, convection cells form, rise quickly to over 20,000 ft, and raindrops are carried up and down on currents, cooling to form hail.
Size of hail depends on how many trips each piece makes through this conveyor belt.
Electric storm Hurly-burly (England) Lightning storm Thundershower Thundersquall
Storm terms, including multiple storm patterns:
Many have technical definitions to meteorologists, based on severity of winds along with rain
Cold Storm Cyclone Derecho Gale
Haster Hurricane Monsoon Storm
Tempest Tropical Storm Typhoon
Warm storm
Barber (Scottish) very cold storm at sea
Gowk storm (Also called gowh's storm): In England, a storm or gale occurring at about the end of April or the beginning of May
Mother of Storms: Native Alaskan term, mother is said to be ‘visiting’ for several weeks as storm after storm arrives
High degree of Onionization: successive storm fronts lined up like layers of an onion across the Pacific
Storm terms based on compass directions: Sou’wester, Sou’easter, Nor’wester, Nor’easter and others
Cow-quaker: In England, a May storm (after the cows have been turned out)
Peesweep storm (Also called peaseweep, peesweip, peewit, teuchit, swallow storm): An early-spring storm in Scotland and England.
Pineapple Express (atmospheric river, brings warm heavy rain and wind for many days at a time to the West Coast), now see Atmospheric River, use began in 1990s, formal NOAA NWS
ARkStorm (A.R. K = 1,000 years, Storm) as a term was first used in mid 2000s.
Last ARkStorm on our coast was in 1861/2, rained for 47 days from CA to WA, flooded all river valleys up to and including Columbia River, Sacramento/Central Valley, CA, and LA basin)
Silver thaw: a PNW term for a Pineapple Express that arrives after a cold spell with low elevation snow and ice.
First the rain ices the surface, then thaws out the land and melts snow; extensive floods often follow. Meteorologists call this a ‘rain on snow’ event.
Outflow — a surge of wind that's produced by storms — may blow ten to fifty miles ahead of storm fronts, preceding the rain front.
From England: “Your words for rain,” http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18461189
1. Not Raining
Outdoor furniture is erected cautiously in gardens and on balconies. Light to moderate rummaging takes places in rucksacks for cagoules [heavy, hooded rain jackets] and pac-a-macs [lightweight rain gear].
2. Mizzling
Women on way to hairdressing appointments proceed apprehensively without umbrellas.
3. Grizzerable
Overseas players on county cricket teams are surprised to discover that they're required to continue playing.
4. Woodfiddly Rain Outdoor furniture is brought back indoors. Lips are pursed.
5. Mawky
Aggressive hawkers selling fold-up umbrellas appear outside railway stations and shopping centres. Women on way back from hairdressers form impatient queue.
6. Tippling Down
Garden furniture is returned to garden centres in hope of getting money back.
7. Luttering Down
Fingers drummed on indoor furniture. Eyes rolled. Tuts tutted
8. Plothering Down
Irritating displays of supposedly barbecue-friendly foods are removed from the entrance areas of supermarkets.
9. Pishpotikle Weather
Rain intensifies. Women with newly done hair find aggressive hawkers have disappeared when they take defective umbrellas back in search of a refund.
10. Raining Like a Cow Relieving Itself
11. Raining Stair-rods
Any garden furniture that is not taken indoors, floats away. Reporters on 24-hour news channels began using the word ‘torrential’ and holding their hands out with their palms upturned.
12. Siling Down
Hardy British holidaymakers are finally driven from beach at Herne Bay [SE England, on coast of Thames Estuary]. Garden furniture begins appearing on eBay.
And see:
http://www.japan-talk.com/jt/new/why-Japanese-has-50-words-for-rain
http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/reports/wxfacts/British-Weather-Terms.htm
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