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Weather Words

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June 16, 2005, 10:05
wordcrafter
Weather Words
Let us talk about weather this week.

heat island – an urban area where the temperature is consistently higher than in the surrounding region
[Note: due to human activity and to heat retention by buildings, concrete, and asphalt]
June 16, 2005, 12:14
Dianthus
"How beautifully blue the sky,
the glass is rising very high.
Continue fine I hope it may
and yet it rained but yesterday.
Tomorrow it may pour again.
I hear the country wants some rain.
Yet people say (I know not why)
that we shall have a warm July."

Ah, nostalgia, nostalgia - sigh Roll Eyes. Many times have I sung that one Smile.

In Yorkshire (in the north of England) when it's very cold, they say "ee, it be raaht nitherin'".

I've picked up from somewhere the phrase "chucking it down in stair rods" to describe heavy rain.

I listen to the BBC Shipping Forecast every night, which gives detailed weather conditions for sailors around the British Isles. The text is read at moderate dictation speed in impeccable BBC accents by a rota of BBC continuity announcers. If you want to listen to it, you can do so here.

I've done a bit of googling and found some interesting Canadian weather words.
This is a fascinating article on Orcadian weather words (from the Orkney Islands off the top of Scotland).

There are other fascinating terms from other dialects here.
June 16, 2005, 14:12
neveu
"Let us shut our eyes / And talk about the weather" would make an excellent subtitle for Crichton's book.
June 17, 2005, 08:10
wordcrafter
pluvial – relating to rain; or, having abundant rainOur entry concerns 'wetness', but our quote gives a 'dryness' bonus word, and OED gives more.

chott; shott – a shallow brackish lake or marsh, usually dry in the summer and covered with salt
playa – a temporary lake after rain; the desert basin, barren and salty, where that lake forms
sabkha – a flat depression that regularly floods and evaporates, leaving layers of clays and salts
kavir – a salt-desert, in Persia
June 17, 2005, 10:08
Kalleh
I wonder if there is an antonym form of pluvial, such as unpluvial. Then I could say that we've had a very unpluvial spring! Wink
June 17, 2005, 11:30
neveu
quote:
Originally posted by Kalleh:
I wonder if there is an antonym form of pluvial, such as unpluvial. Then I could say that we've had a very unpluvial spring!


It's been pluviating like crazy in SF.
June 17, 2005, 12:32
jerry thomas
Theme song for meteorologists ...

Both Sides Now
(JONI MITCHELL)

Rows and flows of angel hair
And ice cream castles in the air
And feather canyons everywhere
I've looked at clouds that way

But now they only block the sun
They rain and they snow on everyone
So many things I would have done
But clouds got in my way

I've looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down, and still somehow
It's cloud illusions I recall
I really don't know clouds at all ...

June 17, 2005, 20:54
wordcrafter
incus – the flattened, anvil-shaped top of a thundercloud (also, a certain bone within the ear)
[pl. incudes. From L. for 'anvil']
Unforgettably dramatic pictures are here and here

How odd that something as dramatic as a thunderstorm has generated very few words. The Greek root bronte, meaning 'thunder', appears in only one reasonably-common word, which does not even concern weather: it names the very large dinosaur formerly called brontosaurus ('thunder-lizard'). The handful of other bronte words are all very rare, and for the most part they are both obvious and useless. Brontograph; brontophobia; brontometer. Really now, how often will you have occasion to refer to a brontograph?

But one rare bronte word could be useful. We all have shuddered at the muffled rumbling of distant thunder. What do you call that sound? You call it a 'brontide' when it's produced by seismic events: volcanic eruption, earthquake, etc. Brontide would be a wonderful, useful word for that familiar rumbling sound from thunder itself. Some weather-glossaries even define it so, but I can find no examples of it ever being used that way.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: wordcrafter,
June 18, 2005, 07:13
Caterwauller
Very cool words!

I love thunderstorms. I love going out on a covered porch to watch them roll over and surround us. When I was in Wyoming as a Girl Scout (good god, was it really 27 years ago?) I was camping on a mesa when a thunderstorm came in. I could hear it rolling over the land, dip down into the valley, and climb over the mesa. Very cool, and more than a little intimidating. Nice memory - thanks.


*******
"Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.
~Dalai Lama
June 18, 2005, 07:15
Caterwauller
quote:
playa – a temporary lake after rain; the desert basin, barren and salty, where that lake forms


Gives new meaning to the rap phrase "don't be a playa hata". Big Grin


*******
"Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.
~Dalai Lama
June 18, 2005, 22:12
wordcrafter
graupel – granular snow pellets; also called soft hail
[Longer explanation in next post. The 'au' is pronounced like the 'ow' in 'howl'.]Bonus word: couloir – a deep mountainside gorge or gully, esp. in the Swiss Alps
[Fr. couler, to slide, to flow]
June 18, 2005, 22:20
wordcrafter
Quoting:

. . .I looked out the window and was amazed to see that three or four inches of new snow had gathered on the ground. But when I walked outside I discovered that what was falling was not snow. Or sleet. Or hail. And it was certainly not rain.
. . .White pellets, approximately 1/3 of an inch (and more) wide and of roughly spherical shape, were falling from the sky. The pellets were soft yet not quite mushy, and slightly resilient. The sound of their fall was unlike anything I'd heard before or have heard since. … this strange substance … I checked a book and found out that I had been walking in a fall of the rarest major form of precipitation: graupel.
. . .Graupel is sometimes called "soft hail" or "snow grains." But when you actually experience it you'll be convinced that it really does deserve its own special name. Graupel is actually an aggregate of cloud droplets, sometimes with a cluster of ice needles or a star-shaped snow crystal at the center. Graupel itself is sometimes the core for hailstone. It is most common in blizzards and lake-effect snowstorms. Graupel can be electrified enough to cause burst of static noise when it hits a radio antenna.
. . .Perhaps one day you will have the chance to see this precipitation and ask friends, "Guess what it's doing outside?" All of their attempts will utterly fail, because it won't be raining, snowing, hailing, or sleeting outside. It'll be graupeling.
– Fred Schaaf, Mother Earth News, Feb-March, 1994
June 18, 2005, 23:06
Kalleh
quote:
I love thunderstorms. I love going out on a covered porch to watch them roll over and surround us.

I agree, CW. We love to go out on our porch during a storm. It is so romantic!

I wonder if there is a word for a dog that goes crazy during a thunderstorm! Mad Ours actually has jumped through our porch screen and run to the next suburb where the police picked her up.
June 19, 2005, 00:20
Dianthus
quote:
Originally posted by Caterwauller:
[QUOTE]playa – a temporary lake after rain; the desert basin, barren and salty, where that lake forms


Playa is also the Spanish word for beach.
June 19, 2005, 00:52
Dianthus
I like thunderstorms too, but my grandmother was terrified of them. I used to stay with my grandparents during the long school holidays of Christmas, Easter and Summer and when it thundered (or even if a thunderstorm threatened), she would take the dog and go and sit in the cellar till she was told it had finished. We had to put cutlery in drawers and turn all the mirrors round to face the wall as well.

Mind you, she had a reason to be scared of lightning. I don't know all the details because I wasn't there at the time and it was many years ago, but this is roughly what happened.

My grandparents lived on a farm which was surrounded by fields and there was only one other house for about half a mile in any direction. My grandparents' kitchen was long and narrow. It had an old fashioned kitchen range like this (it's not the same, but it's the closest match I could find) opposite the window, and there was about 10 feet of space between the window and the range. In those days people lived mainly in the kitchen (which was usually at the back of the house) and they kept the "front room" for visitors and special occasions. My grandmother and uncle were sitting in the kitchen by the range with my grandmother on one side and my uncle on the other. My uncle had just settled back in his chair after stirring the embers in the range when a fireball came through the window and burned a hole in the rug on the floor between them! I can't remember whether they said the window was open or closed at the time. The fire in the range was always burning all year round because my grandmother cooked all the family meals in it, so that was no indication as to whether the window would be open or not. In fact, the window may have been open because of the oppressive humid heat which builds up before thunderstorms.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Dianthus,
June 19, 2005, 20:11
wordcrafter
isobar – a line on a weather map connecting points of equal atmospheric pressure.
[isopiesticnoun: an isobar; adj. having equal pressure; isobaric]

Some people take their isobars very seriously, as the BBC recently learned when it tried to change how it displays weather reports. This was part of a larger controversy, including regional rivalries. How did it end? Adam Sherwin of The Times told the story with typical British humor, on May 28:'orientate'? What do you think of that?
June 20, 2005, 03:21
Richard English
quote:
orientate'? What do you think of that?

Sounds fine to me. It means to get yourself sorted out in relation to a situation - usually literally spacially but possibly (as is partly the case here) figuratively.


Richard English
June 20, 2005, 10:24
Kalleh
I hate it, as I have posted previously. I see "orientate" as similar to "irregardless." There is no point at all in "orientate"...the word is "orient."
June 20, 2005, 11:18
arnie
I was fascinated to read that old thread again, Kalleh! In particular there was what may well be Richard's first post here on the superiority of British beer!


Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
June 20, 2005, 11:33
shufitz
Indeed, arnie, a fun look back. Two things noticed.


Kalleh, speaking of pet peeves, said,Er, would that be 'wrongly'? Wink


A bit after Richard's noted post, Bob mentioned a friend of his trying to sample as many different beers as possible. Says Bob, "Two years ago he passed his seven thousandth different beer."

Not all 7,000 passed in the same WC, I hope? Roll Eyes Eek
June 20, 2005, 12:06
Richard English
quote:
I was fascinated to read that old thread again, Kalleh! In particular there was what may well be Richard's first post here on the superiority of British beer!

Good heavens, that was back in the ante-1845 days when Kalleh thought that Harp was a decent beer!

And wfc was still posting - where has she gone?


Richard English
June 20, 2005, 16:39
arnie
I've been spending quite some time clicking around the old threads. Here's one I discovered that predates our recent thread about other words for drunkenness.


Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
June 20, 2005, 21:22
Kalleh
Yes, it was fun reading those old posts, I agree! Thunderchicken? Wildflowerchild! And sweet Morgan!

I still remember Arnie saying to me, "O ye of little faith." At the time I didn't know that Arnie is always right! Wink

Yes, Richard, every so often I try a Harp for old time's sake. I can't imagine what I saw in it!
June 20, 2005, 21:51
wordcrafter
undercast – a solid cloud layer, as viewed from above
[mostly used in pilot reporting of in-flight weather conditions. not in OED]
July 24, 2005, 19:24
Kalleh
I found a word that I hadn't heard of before, but that is never very notable. However, Shu hadn't heard of it either, and that is notable!

Derecho -- a long-lasting line of thunderstorms, which is precisely what we need here in Illinois where we have had 17% of our normal rains!
June 26, 2006, 12:09
Kalleh
Ever heard of firenado? I hadn't. It's an intense tornado-like whirlwind that forms in the plume of heated air rising above a large fire, made visible by smoke (and occasionally flame, if the fire is large enough) drawn into the whirlwind. It was written about on the Chicago Tribune weather page today.