It's spring, and the weather is changing here. Some days it starts out sunny and 70 and ends up 40 and rainy, but that is just Buffalo!

How many precipitation words can we come up with?

Raining
Pouring
Sleeting
Hailing
Snowing

There is a start for you.

cloud burst

gully washer

frog drownder ]sic]

chunk floater

Hail
Snow
Sleet
Freezing rain
And an expression old-timers around here use to describe freezing rain that stys frozen onto vegetation,
Silver thaw

Then there's liquid sunshine

Drizzle
Mizzle
Scotch mist
A soft day

Well, here is another area in which I am ignorant..."Mizzle", "Scotch mist", "A soft day"? Are these British terms because I have heard of none of them? Of course there's the thunderstorm, the drencher, and the phrase raining like cats and dogs.

"Mizzle" is a portmanteau word, formed from "mist" and "drizzle". "Scotch mist" (perhaps more properly "Scots mist") is, erm, mist and drizzle, It is named after the common weather in Scotland. "A soft day" is a common Irish euphemism for a rainy day.

Cloud juice
Sky juice
God is crying
God is spitting on us
Coming down in buckets
Monsoon

Bucketing down
Chucking it down
Raining stair rods
Hammering down

and I know it's crude but I can't believe no-one has mentioned

Pissing down

Non curo ! Si metrum no habet, non est poema.

Read all about my travels around the world here.
Read even more of my travel writing and poems on my weblog.

Non curo ! Si metrum no habet, non est poema
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You mean, it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing?

Cloud sweat

It ain't quite complete if it ain't got the beat

Man, it's gonna rain like a cow pi$$in' on a flat rock !!

quote:

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Originally posted by Asa Lovejoy:
Non curo ! Si metrum no habet, non est poema
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You mean, it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing?

Cloud sweat

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That's exactly how I'd have translated it.
It's always better to translate the meaning rather than just the words.

Non curo ! Si metrum no habet, non est poema.

Read all about my travels around the world here.
Read even more of my travel writing and poems on my weblog.

Blizzard seems to be a relatively new word. Et. On-line says, "1859, origin obscure, came into general use in the hard winter 1880-81, though sense of 'violent blow' is 1829, Amer.Eng., and blizz 'violent rainstorm' is attested from 1770."

Can we consider mist and fog types of precipitation?

I have also heard of teeming rain...but how hard a rain is that?

It's raining cats & dogs ... and there are poodles in the streets.

Can we consider mist and fog types of precipitation?
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Isn't "mist" German slang for manure? If I'm correct, and it's misting, I'm staying inside!

Two more forms of precipitation: dew and frost.

Do those count? Does "precipitation" include condensate, or must it by definition be water that falls? I'd never thought of that question.

Wow! This seemed like such a simple question when I started looking into it. I thought precipitation was moisture that is discharged from clouds and falls to the earth. I would not consider dew or frost to be precipitation.
Global Change, Electronic Edition seems to support my definition:

Precipitation. Any or all forms of liquid or solid water particles that fall from the atmosphere and reach the Earth's surface. It includes drizzle, rain, snow, snow pellets, snow grains, ice crystals, ice pellets, and hail. The ratio of precipitation to evaporation is the most important factor in the distribution of vegetation zones. Precipitation is also defined as a measure of the quantity, expressed in centimeters or milliliters of liquid water depth, of the water substance that has fallen at a given location in a specified amount of time (Source: Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, 1990).

But--there's always a "but"--Weather And Climate: Terms And Concepts from 1Up Info says, "precipitation, in meteorology, condensed moisture that falls to the surface of the earth in the form of rain, sleet, snow, hail, frost, or dew".

So that definition includes frost and dew. That makes some sense, since dew is moisture condensed from air as it cools below a certain point, and is subsequently (or simultaneously?) deposited (or precipitated). I still don't think of it as precipitation, though, since it does not come directly from clouds.

1Up Info's definition of dew included this sentence: "Most authorities account for the supply of water vapor as coming from the atmosphere, though some research suggests that it also diffuses up through the soil and then condenses on the ground surface if conditions are favorable". Is dew that falls from the sky precipitatation, while dew that diffuses up through the soil is not precipitation?

This site (1Up Info) is worth looking at. Look at what it covers.

Tinman

quote:

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Originally posted by Asa Lovejoy:
Isn't "mist" German slang for manure? If I'm correct, and it's misting, I'm staying inside!

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That's true except that it is not slang but the excepted word, especially when liquified and put in special tanks that are towed behind tractors that spray it in the air and let it fall down again on the fields. No kidding. How's that for precipitation? Even it you are not affected directly, the smell will keep you inside. Here in Austria we call it "good country air".

Around here, we have to look out for the "slurry pits". These are large ponds on farm land with the animal feces added to form the fertilizer that is spread in the way that robb mentions, above.

I say, "look out for them" because in the winter time, we have many miles of snowmobile trails on farm land. The ponds are usually well marked, but sometimes the snow gets high enough to cover the markings. The ponds never freeze, but may have a thin coating of snow on them, so you don't see them till it's too late. You only need to find one once that way, to know you never want to happen across another!

Sorry Morgan, but I have to confess to an anti-snowmobiler bias. Most of the enthusiasts of this "sport" I have known take great delight in tearing up the environment, ruining it for others, just for the sake of their own selfish pleasure.

We need more slurry pits, I say!

quote:

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Originally posted by Morgan:
"slurry pits" never freeze, but may have a thin coating of snow on them, so you don't see them till it's too late.

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Would this be the slurry with a tinge on top?

quote:

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Originally posted by C J Strolin:
Sorry Morgan, but I have to confess to an anti-snowmobiler bias. Most of the enthusiasts of this "sport" I have known take great delight in tearing up the environment, ruining it for others, just for the sake of their own selfish pleasure.

We need more slurry pits, I say!

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Well! I do want to be very delicate here. CJ, I am former secretary (three consecutive years) of our local snowmobile club. I am still a very active member. My husband is the current Vice President. I state all this, so you know that I do have some knowledge on the sport.

Our club maintains 47 miles of snowmobile trails in several adjacent towns. We get permission from the landowners and provide insurance at no charge to each landowner. Maintaining a trail includes clearing the land if necessary, building bridges or inserting culvert pipes, and marking the trails clearly according to guidelines set by New York State. We mark all stop signs, road signs, and "snowmobile crossing" signs.

In the spring when the season is over, we remove all markings and clean any debris that is found along the trails. We have no complaints from our landowners and many find their property in better shape at the end of the season, than they did at the beginning of it. The bridges and culverts we install are 12 feet in width and strong enough to carry there farm equipment, thus making it easier for them to use their own land.

Our club connects at different points with three other clubs in our areas who follow the same guidelines. During the course of the year, we use machinery that we members purchased for about $100,000 to "groom" the trails to keep them in the best shape possible. This keeps snowmobilers on the trails.

In addition to all this, I am the coordinator for the "Erie County Disaster Preparedness Unit". This means that when we have any type of snow emergency, I coordinate snowmobilers and get them to where they are most needed. Whether that be rescuing stranded motorists, delivering doctors and nurses to hospitals, bringing food or medicine to those who can't get out, or taking a doctor to deliver a baby in the back seat of a car buried in snow (Nov. 2001 snowstorm).

We also make a multi-million dollar impact in the state each season. Yes, there are those who abuse the privilege of riding snowmobiles, but there are far more, at least here in New York State, who follow the rules, and the marked trails.


OK...I'm off my soapbox!

Ah, Morgan, that may have been your first soapbox. Yet, look at me! I have rambled on, ad nauseum I fear, about smoking, women, George W., so....it is your turn.

We in Chicago have been having lots of "drenchers" recently, and I see from the newspaper that it is to storm each day here through next Sunday. That comes after having one of the driest Aprils in history! Anyway, in the newspaper today it says that we have been doused with rain. I rather like that term.

Morgan, I hope you know that I wasn't attacking you personally. I fully understand that, particularly in your neck of the woods, snowmobiles are as necessary as, oh, I don't know, sunblock in Florida? (There must be a better metaphor...)

Oh, no! I feel a digression coming on!!


To the tune of "I'm in Love with a Wonderful Guy":

I'm as oily as sunblock in Florida,
Greasy as french fries, I cannot deny.
If you'll excuse an expression I use
I'm in love with a Vaseline guy!!


Don't ask me where that came from or what it might mean. I'm clueless on both counts.

Where was I? On, yes, snowmobiling. As a long-time enthusiast, can I assume that you have encountered your share of snowmobilers who abuse the sport, the land, the neighbors, the environment etc etc etc? I have and it is these morons I wish slurry pits on. I once threatened to turn some "sportsmen" (their word, definitely not mine!) to the police for their practice of running down deer in the open woods (state-owned, though I never learned if that made a difference) only to be informed, upon looking into the matter myself, that a certain degree of mechanized assistance to hunters is perfectly legal as long as all other laws (licenses, vehicle registration, etc) aren't broken. These morons implied that they thought shooting while going full speed over the snow was a real hoot and I'm sure that that has to be illegal.

I don't wish any serious harm or bad luck on anyone but just as the sight of one drunken hunter shooting the hat off of another would strike me as greatly humorous, so also a stereotypical "bad" snowmobiler watching his machine tumble down a steep ravine onto the rocks below would, at the very least, cause me to smile. It's like a burning cross toppling over onto a crowd of hooded klansmen. Screw 'em! Screw 'em all!

But you, Morgan, and your crowd, definitely not. You're the good guys and may your tribe increase.


(By the way, you soapbox well!)

quote:

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(By the way, you soapbox well!)

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Just a very quiet, thank you, kind sir.

quote:

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"Scotch mist" (perhaps more properly "_Scots_ mist") is, erm, mist and drizzle, It is named after the common weather in Scotland.

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I thought that Scotch Mist (apart from being a drink recipe) -- and I now see that OED agrees with me in part -- was both spelt as "Scotch" and referred to something ethereal. It goes on to state that there are very few occasions upon which "Scotch" is used in preference to "Scottish", but in the cases of usgua or uisce (whisky) and of mist, it is preferred.

OED also offers a weather condition, which is something I should have inferred but didn't.

Stephen

quote:

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Originally posted by the_bear:
there are very few occasions upon which "Scotch" is used in preference to "Scottish", but in the cases of usgua or uisce (whisky) and of mist, it is preferred.

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Pancakes?

quote:

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Originally posted by pauld:
Pancakes?

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I'm not saying it was an exhaustive list.

The list, though not very long, contains another two food items; Scotch egg and Scotch woodcock.

Stephen.

quote:

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Originally posted by C J Strolin:
Greasy as french fries, I cannot deny.

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Which is inaccurate on at least two counts, I should imagine

Stephen.

quote:

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The list, though not very long, contains another two food items; Scotch egg and Scotch woodcock.

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I have never heard of Scotch woodcock, but if that is some sort of food as you indicate, I think I'll pass!

Scotch Woodcock is a similar sort of meal to Welsh Rabbit (or Rarebit). It is a savoury dish consisting of scrambled eggs on toast with anchovies or anchovy paste.

Recently in Chicago we have had severe thunderstorm after severe thunderstorm, with thunder, lightening, torrential rain, hail and funnel clouds. The headline in the weather section of our newspaper today is "String of July thunderstorms most in 71 years."

This phrase was used, and defined, and it is new to me:

"A spate of microbursts--sudden, short-lived downdrafts that create strong wind shears--Saturday morning on the South Side caused much of the damage...."

To the tune of "I'm in Love with a Wonderful Guy":

I'm as oily as sunblock in Florida,
Greasy as french fries, I cannot deny.
If you'll excuse an expression I use
I'm in love with a Vaseline guy!!

_____________________________________________

My version - for those of us who are older:


I'm as oily as sunblock in summer,

Slicker than snot, and I must tell you why:

If you'll excuse an expression I use,

I'm in love with a guy with K-Y.

See my above about our thunderstorms in Chicago? This was in today's editorial in the Chicago Tribune:

"You live here because it's a toddlin' town that even Billy Sunday couldn't shut down. You live here for the sports, the lakefront, the pizza, the skyline, the hot dogs, the culture, the always entertaining politics.

You live here despite the weather because you know full well that regardless of season it's always either too hot, too cold, too dry, too wet. And then it all changes--except for the complaints."

That says it all about Chicago. It has now poured mercilessly here every day for at least a week, probably longer because I have lost count.

quote:

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Originally posted by Kalleh:
It has now poured mercilessly here every day for at least a week, probably longer because I have lost count.

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It's been exceptionally hot and dry here, with highs in the 80s. I'll trade you (weather, not cities).

Tinman

[This message was edited by tinman on Fri Jul 11th, 2003 at 23:13.]

'Tis still raining here in Chicago. In fact, if we have one more thunderstorm in July (there are several predicted), we will tie the July record of 13 thunderstorms. Our July rainfall, so far, is the highest since 1928.

In today's paper, "a squall line brought 60-m.p.h. winds, vivid lightening, and hail the size of quarters to storm-weary Chicago-area residents who have already endured more than the usual number of downed limbs and power lines this summer."

Sounds lovely to me. We're having one of our driest and hottest summers.

Tinman

No one mentioned rime ice here. Actually "rime ice" is new to me. I read about it today in our weather section of the newspaper.

"Rime ice" is "supercooled" droplets that immediately freeze upon contact with twigs and branches; the milky-white ice that results is rime. It really is quite beautiful.

Am I alone in never having heard of it?

Am I alone in never having heard of it?
____________________________________________
Don't know if you're alone, Kalleh, but those of us who have ever flown an aircraft have definately heard of it! It's something one does NOT want on one's wings while in flight.

We had some around here on Wednesday. Portland occasionally gets ice storms with snow, sleet, freezing rain, hail, and who knows what else all simultaneously within several microclimates in this area of great topographic variety.

If at first you don't succeed, you'll only go skydiving once.

[This message was edited by Asa Lovejoy on Sat Jan 10th, 2004 at 7:11.]