Weather Words – Cloudburst
Hello,
This week’s word, thanks to my current writing project (“Words the Weather Gave Us”), is a rainy one – cloudburst. I hope you enjoy this early draft extract.
Extract from “Words the Weather Gave Us” by Grace Tierney, copyright 2022
A cloudburst is defined as a sudden very heavy rainfall, usually local in nature and of brief duration.
Most are associated with thunderstorms. This is because the violent uprushes of air in the thunderstorm prevents raindrops from falling to the ground in the normal manner. More water accumulates in the clouds overhead until the uprush weakens and then the whole lot drops in one great down pouring of rain.
Cloudbursts are most common in mountainous areas because of the effect of the mountain slopes on the air currents within the thunderstorm. One such cloudburst produced 63mm (2.47 inches) in just 3 minutes in Porto Bello, Panama on the 29th of November 1911.
The word cloudburst is a compound of cloud and burst. It first appeared in American English in the early 1800s. Cloud’s surprisingly solid origins are explained in the introduction to the Cloud Cuckoo Land chapter.
Burst arrived in English in the 1600s from the verb of the same name with the meaning of the act of bursting, a sudden issuing forth. It was also widely used by Austen, Coleridge, and Browning with an additional sense of a sudden opening out of a view. Perhaps that might happen after a cloudburst when the clouds cleared away. Miss Austen wouldn’t have recognised the threatening Hiberno-English slang of “Come here and I’ll burst ya” (come over and I’ll punch you, presumably until you burst open).
{end of extract}
Until next time, happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,
Grace (@Wordfoolery)
p.s. It’s day 14 of the 30 days NaNoWriMo 2022 writing challenge and I’m on 25,407 words.
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p.p.p.s. I’m frantically trying to finish “Modern Words with Old Roots”, a digital exclusive Wordfoolery mini-book (e.g. shorter than the main Words series), to have it out before Christmas. As I won’t be releasing “Words Christmas Gave Us” (ebook & paperback & possibly hardback too) until 2023, you can use “Modern Words with Old Roots” to keep you going in the meantime. Watch this space!
