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community weblog
die Füchse kochen Kaffee
What we talk about when we talk about the weather. (sl Lithub).
gluggaveður -
noun.
Icelandic
GLUGG-ah-ve-thur.
Literally translates as "window weather" and refers to the sorts of weathers that are pleasant to look at from inside but, depending on how one feels about such weathers, perhaps less pleasant to actually be outside in. A not uncommon phenomenon to be found in Iceland, a place of some unpredictable and harsh weathers...
posted by storybored on Jun 06, 2026 at 1:54 PM
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I'm always complaining about how few words English has for rain. The language comes from a rainy, damp country, shouldn't there be distinct words for the dozens of different textures of rain?
This never bothered me before I moved to the Pacific Northwest but now it super bothers me. I have a bunch of different rain concepts in my mind but no vocabulary for them.
posted by potrzebie at 3:55 PM
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In French, it rains ropes (il pleut des cordes) when rain is heavy. I suppose it's more humane than raining cats and dogs.
But I give up: Why are the foxes making coffee? Is that a German expression for rain? All I could see is a children's book about actual foxes having actual coffee, along with the very german coffee cake.
posted by Bigbootay. Tay! Tay! Blam! Aargh... at 4:24 PM
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You mean to say I should have RTFA? OK: it's an expression for mist. Es tut mir leid....
posted by Bigbootay. Tay! Tay! Blam! Aargh... at 4:26 PM
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As penance, I offer "ca caille", it literally means it's so cold as to curdle. You can also add "la lourde, on gele!" which is slang for "mind the door, it's freezing!"
posted by Bigbootay. Tay! Tay! Blam! Aargh... at 4:30 PM
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I don;t know, between misting, sprinkling, spitting, drizzling, raining, pouring, sunshower, cloudburst, and torrential rain, the only really thing I feel English is lacking to describe in PNW weather is a word for the rain that's coming in at a 45 degree angle at a handful of degrees above freezing and rendering umbrellas into silly things that people from somewhere else tend to carry, unaware of their only situational utility in this climate.
Though slightly more on topic, there is nothing better than the tingle up your neck when it's suddenly cold and rain but you have a good, warm raincoat and a nice, dry place to retreat you and wait out the weather.
posted by Zalzidrax at 5:12 PM
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here in toronto we call the steady rain that falls when it's just above freezing "nope" as in "are you going out in that"
the absolute worst kind of precipitation, because it comes with 100% humidity that sucks the warmth right out of you and because it's wet, not solid, soaks into everything, and as a bonus the sidewalk may be slushy and even if it isn't, the splashes get into your shoes and it's horrible
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:29 PM
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Ella Francis Sanders is a gift. search her out.
posted by j_curiouser at 5:51 PM
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I have a bunch of different rain concepts in my mind but no vocabulary for them.
You should have a talk with Rob McKenna.
posted by Greg_Ace at 6:29 PM
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>> I have a bunch of different rain concepts in my mind but no vocabulary for them.
> You should have a talk with Rob McKenna.
Someone has definitely "crossed the streams", because Rob McKenna is also the former Attorney General of Washington state up here in the rainy PNW.
posted by Slothrup at 6:35 PM
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We talk about the weather because in doing so we are talking about being alive, and fleeting, and flawed. We talk about weather because we want people to know that we, too, can be changeable and varied and nourishing.
Check. This is true. Green screen TV weathercasts are one thing, small talk about weather is another, but the somatic truth of weather is what counts.
Also, maybe you've noticed this in groups, perhaps at work or in workshops/retreats of one kind or another: the facilitator asks us to go around in a circle and tell the group what their internal weather is like? Or is this just me?
posted by kozad at 7:01 PM
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Hmm, off hand I can think of a bunch of rain terms. In terms of intensity--misting, drizzling, spitting, a sunshower, sprinkling, pouring, a cloudburst (short term) a squall (with wind) a deluge (big puddles and running water) a thundershower (boomers!) a hailstorm (add ice) and finally the technical term: really pissing down.
And there's the hanging rain in the desert, which is the rain that nobody gets.
posted by BlueHorse at 9:09 PM
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my "internal weather" is like fuck off. people seriously talk like dat?
posted by okayturnip at 9:36 PM
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Zaldidrax, the end of your comment makes me go look up The Long Rain, one of my absolute favorites of Ray Bradbury's short stories. Getting warm and dry after being cold and wet is a fair approximation of paradise.
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 12:12 AM
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Proust makes the observation that, when you arrive home in miserable weather, once you have cleaned up and have made yourself comfortable, you sometimes wish it had been just a bit worse so you would be that much cozier.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:15 AM
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Let's not forget a lashing rain
Pitiless
posted by runsrealgood at 7:02 AM
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Oh, the gods had a laugh because after posting this I got caught in a downpour, il pleut des cordes indeed. So other missing weather words would be "getting wet despite umbrella", "the first feeling of feet getting cold wet" and "the type of person who will walk in heavy rain without cover and smiling all the while" (not me, but saw several such)
posted by storybored at 7:47 AM
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Cats and dogs across the languages.
posted by BWA at 9:05 AM
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"It's raining cats and dogs out there!"
"I know, I just stepped in a poodle."
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:52 PM
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You know what's worse than raining cats and dogs?
Hailing taxis!
posted by Daily Alice at 2:56 PM
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not weather related, but playing cards with my ex-in laws and they'd mutter German phrases all the time
the one that stuck (and they translated): "a dog from every village" (no strength in any suit and not a good hand, the look on the mother-in-law's face when she said that was always priceless to me)
posted by runsrealgood at 6:29 AM
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Wonderful, thanks for this :)
It calls to mind a character in one of Douglas Adams' throwaway gags in the Hitchhikers' series - Rob McKenna was a truck driver who had terrible working days and lousy holidays, because it was always raining. As such he had his own internal "100-words-for-snow" dictionary for the different kinds of rain and its effects: the drizzly mist that wasn't enough to merit your wipers, but was too much to see through etc. He didn't know it, but he was a Rain God and the clouds followed him to praise him and water him.
posted by adekllny at 10:34 AM
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ahem :)
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:46 AM
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Heard in San Luis valley in southern Colorado during an amazing rain storm: like "a cow pissing on a flat rock".
posted by jamjam at 11:23 AM
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