Rain

[JimBentley]

(not the Status Quo track).

In the absence of much activity here lately, I thought I'd start a topic about something mundane that everyone can relate to, and be bored by.

It started raining here at about ten this morning and not just a light shower, it was full-on stair-rods-coming-from-the-sky type rain. I had a letter to post but thought I'd wait until it stopped raining, but at about three this afternoon I realised it probably wasn't going to stop and went out to post it (and got ridiculously soaked). And it's rained hard continuously since then. It's still raining now and coming through my bedroom ceiling. If I could figure out where it was getting in I'd try to stop it. There isn't any obvious place in the room above - which is totally rain-free - so it must be channelled down from the window frames or something. It's a troubling issue.

So, anyone else have any interesting rain-related stories? Or even uninteresting, I haven't set the bar high.

[Matt Morrison]

At work we've been discussing for perhaps a year on-and-off (mostly off) some kind of rain severity scale.
I think it started when we took over the Nordic office and suddenly had lots of Swedes wondering what the exact difference between things like "pouring" and "spitting" was.

The spreadsheet to track it is a fucking mess. I think it goes from 0 to 10 and some entries are missing descriptions altogether whereas others have about two or three options (for what you call that particular severity of rain).

I'll try and find the latest copy tomorrow and post it here. I'm fairly sure you can all help us improve it.

Also I haven't Googled but I bet some smart prick already has a functioning rain severity scale, but it's probably based on something boring like science rather than colloquial terminology.

[Matt Morrison]

stair rods. noted. might not be on the sheet actually, it's a bit northern i think.

[JimBentley]

we took over the Nordic office

Sounds like a euphemism to me! I know it isn't but I'm going to make up some filthy meaning for it and pretend that it is.

The spreadsheet to track it is a fucking mess. I think it goes from 0 to 10 and some entries are missing descriptions altogether

As an expert on the subject I would be excited to contribute to this project.

[Gavin Chipper]

When it's raining really hard and it's quite loud, I say that it's "ratting it down". There doesn't seem to be an acceptable alternative.

[Matt Morrison]

Ok, so our first issue was - does a scale of rain start at 0 (no rain at all) or does it start at 1 (obviously what 1 represents is subjective in itself, but you know what I mean)?



Looking back I think we were foolish to try and have a single descriptor and then a series of synonyms, especially as those single descriptors are already a mix between technical and colloquial.

So yeah, let's get going. Stair rods and rats not yet added.

Any Countdown-based rain categorisations that work? Other than "as wet as Bentley's bedroom", which I guess slots in around 2 or 3 Jim?

[Gavin Chipper]

A few things - I think if you're including descriptors such as drizzle, I'm not sure things work on a one-dimensional scale. It can be drizzling quite hard and you get more wet than with some gappy heavy rain. I remember once I was out and it starting seemingly pissing it down, only I wasn't getting that wet. There was definitely heavy rain, but it was as if there were big gaps between where the drops were falling. Which was weird. Drizzling is kind of the opposite - it's everywhere, but generally not that heavy. But one doesn't just morph into the other by becoming heavier - there's more than one dimension. If you want the single dimension, you probably want to just have a raw measure like cm per hour, but not mention whether it's drizzle or not.

On stair rods, I'm not massively familiar with the term, but I've heard Martin Brundle use it in his F1 commentary sometimes. But he doesn't seem to use it for how much it's raining on the track. It's normally when he's looking into the distance and you can see "rods" coming out of the clouds. So the way he uses it doesn't seem to be a measure of rain, but just what rain looks like in the distance.

Also, I wonder if a score out of 10 is too much. 6 is already pissing it down and you've still got four more to go! Plus I'm not sure once you get beyond that where on the scale I'd put things. It would be hard to judge. Is this torrential, or merely a downpour? I think we need to hang out on some rainy days and correlate things.

[Euan Slatter]

I've had rain. I got wet. I had to stay in so i didn't drown.

[JimBentley]

Looking back I think we were foolish to try and have a single descriptor and then a series of synonyms, especially as those single descriptors are already a mix between technical and colloquial.

I think you're totally correct here. Descriptors are so subjective; for instance I'd have "pissing it down" at least two places above, but I'm sure plenty would disagree.

..."as wet as Bentley's bedroom", which I guess slots in around 2 or 3 Jim?

To be honest it doesn't really fit in at all. At its worst it's a constant stream down the side of the window frame, but when it eases off it seems to be channelled into odd drips that make their way down a tiny crack in the ceiling and eventually drop off about a foot away. Highly localised.

And for another thought, is this just categorisations for UK rain? I've never experienced it myself but the rainfall in tropical countries can be totally insane, literally like a constant wall of water. It can be so heavy that it's hard to tell where it's even coming from and when it's combined with the sort of winds that are prevalent in such countries, it can seem to be coming horizontally.

Fascinating subject anyway. And as another bonus, it's finally stopped raining here! Although I've seen some of the news pictures and it looks as though some places in the UK must have had it far worse. Massive flooding going on around Manchester and down in Devon (and probably elsewhere too). I don't envy them.

[Gavin Chipper]

I've had rain. I got wet. I had to stay in so i didn't drown.

Nice try, but this post is better.

[Marc Meakin]

Two things.
Rain by status quo is a good example of a mondagreen.
Sounds like. I cannot live without Lorraine.

Also about a year ago I started shopping only in shops that gave out free paper bags.
I was cycling back from the library with my hardback books in a Primani bag. Within two minutes of a torrential downpour the bag disintegrated and my library books fell in a pothole rendering them virtually unreadable so I had to buy new copies from Smiths.
End of anecdote

[Ian Volante]

Ok, so our first issue was - does a scale of rain start at 0 (no rain at all) or does it start at 1 (obviously what 1 represents is subjective in itself, but you know what I mean)?



Looking back I think we were foolish to try and have a single descriptor and then a series of synonyms, especially as those single descriptors are already a mix between technical and colloquial.

So yeah, let's get going. Stair rods and rats not yet added.

Any Countdown-based rain categorisations that work? Other than "as wet as Bentley's bedroom", which I guess slots in around 2 or 3 Jim?

The Rain God in the Hitchhiker's Guide trilogy solved this problem years ago. Keep up. I specifically remember one of the categories being 'Dirty blatter', which was non-contextually quite prescient.