Vancouver is famous for a few things.
Beautiful views of mountains and ocean. Expensive housing. Yoga pants.
But perhaps no idea is more connected to Vancouver than rain, so much so that its most famous nickname is probably Raincouver (Vancity is admittedly in the running, but that's just shortening the name and putting what it is at the end, like calling V.I.A.'s boss Bobman or the Canucks' star Elihockeyplayer).
Given that lots of stuff falls from the sky and splashes on the ground, there should be a fair number of words for it, right? Sure.
So what are they, and what do they refer to, specifically?
First, let's go over the "official terms" from the meteorologists at Environment Canada.
Straight out from the glossary:
Precipitation
The most basic, broad, and general of terms.
"Any and all forms of water, liquid or solid, that falls from clouds and reaches the ground," states Environment Canada.
There are three types: liquid, freezing, and frozen.
Rain
While it's the simplest term, rain does have a specific meaning, according to Environment Canada.
"Precipitation in the form of liquid water droplets greater than 0.5 mm," states the glossary.
There are four types of rain, with the very creative names of "very light," "light," "moderate," and "heavy," which define how much rain falls per hour.
Drizzle
While it would be an excellent name for a local rapper, drizzle is what's smaller than rain (that is, it's less than 0.5 mm).
The Environment Canada entry includes this almost poetic scientific description.
"Drizzle drops are too small to cause appreciable ripples on the surface of still water," states the glossary. "The drops appear almost to float in the air, thus making visible even slight movements of air."
Fog
Fog isn't so much a type of precipitation as it is precipitation adjacent, as it is water, but doesn't necessarily fall from the sky. It forms when the air is saturated with water and the temperature and dew point are close.
Pea soup is a term sometimes used for dense fog, but originated from the fog in big cities that was the colour of pea soup.
Freezing
This isn't so much a term for precipitation but it is used in forecasts a lot, so let's touch on it.
It's used in front of the three terms above to note when the liquid forms of precipitation (or fog) will freeze into ice once they make contact with a solid object or the ground.
Fun Fact: Freezing fog has been recorded at temperatures below -30 C, involving super-cooled droplets. This is sometimes called ice fog.
Showers
While the term "showers" is used a lot, often casually to refer to light rain, the word "shower" is more of a modifier in the glossary (like freezing), as there can be different types, like snow or ice pellets.
Thunderstorm/Thundershowers
While precipitation is not necessary for a thunderstorm (enter dry lightning, a serious concern in the B.C.'s interior during the summer), there are often thundershowers that come along with the thunder and lightning. Usually, these are short, dramatic storms.
To officially be a thunderstorm, thunder needs to have been heard within the last 15 minutes or lightning has been observed in the last 15 minutes and the noise around a location may have drowned out the thunder.
While uncommon, thundersnow is a thing as well. It's rarer, and isn't always obvious, since the lightning might be hidden by falling snow and the thunder muffled by, well, the falling snow. It's also possible to see lightning in the distance and not hear thunder if there's enough snow around to muffle the rumble.
Hail
While it's not liquid, it is a type of precipitation that Vancouver can get year-round. Regular hail is between 5 and 50 mm (50 mm is very rare, though the largest ever in Canada was 123 mm and nearly 300 g).
Hail is also probably the most complex of the more common forms of precipitation. Counter-intuitively, they must go up before they can drop, rising as a droplet on an updraft into sub-zero temperatures where it freezes. Then water vapour freezes to it, and the stone grows, sometimes combining with others.
Eventually, conditions change or they get too heavy to rise, and therefore fall.
Other Environment Canada terms
Not all terms used by the federal agency are in the glossary. Environment Canada meteorologist Bobby Sekhon says there are a few reasons for that. Sometimes it's a better way to get a concept across, or sometimes they have technical terms they don't use in forecasts.
"There are the technical terms that we use and that includes rain showers, snow flurries, freezing rain, drizzle, hail, these type of things," he says. "Then there are more informal things we use to communicate in more layman terms."
Wintry Mix
This is exactly one of those terms without an official definition, but when you hear it, you get it.
"It's not officially defined, but it seems to resonate with people, and when we want to get that concept across we like to use some of that language that's out there to get through to the public," Sekhon says.
This is a mix of snow and rain that falls in Vancouver, often between the fall and spring. It's the Munchies mix of precipitation, with a little bit of the usual suspects (rain, freezing rain, sleet, snow, drizzle).
Convection showers
This is a more technical name for the showers that often (but don't always) accompany thunderstorms. Usually, they're quick, intense storms that hit hard in a smaller area.
It should be noted that thunderstorms don't always have convection showers, and convection showers don't require a thunderstorm.
Snow level
It's just the altitude where falling snow melts and becomes rain.
Chunky Rain
Another term Sekhon says is a fun one meteorologists use sometimes, chunky rain might sound weird at first, but it fits really well with what is being described.
"That can be for melting snow or a rain or snow mix," he says, explaining that it's the stuff that falls like rain or wet snow in big pieces and hits your windshield as a blob, sometimes with a little ice melting right away. Whereas normal rain droplets have a certain symmetry to them, chunky rain doesn't really.
Virga
This is a technical term that technically isn't precipitation. It's what balances out fog, which interacts with the ground but doesn't fall from a cloud.
Virga is the stuff that falls from the clouds but doesn't make it to the ground.
While that sounds unusual, it happens often enough Sekhon says. Sometimes it's when a rain cloud is arriving, the leading edge hits warm or dry air and doesn't fall the rest of the way as it evaporates and is absorbed by dry air.
You can see this, too, in clouds far away.
"There can be a curtain coming down from a cloud, but doesn't make it to the ground," says Sekhon.
Atmospheric Rivers
This has moved from meteorological terminology to common parlance over the last few years and, in its basic form, is a corridor of concentrated moisture flowing from one place to another through the atmosphere.
"We can get atmospheric rivers stretching all the way from Vietnam," Sekhon notes.
While the term is associated with rain storms like the November 2021 event that flooded the Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley, it doesn't necessarily mean anything that dramatic is happening.
Pineapple Express/Tropical Punch
Types of atmospheric rivers from Hawaii (pineapple express) or other warm parts of the Pacific (tropical punch). Typically they have warmer rain than one might expect for the time of the year.
"That's not a particularly scientific term, but people associate it with warm wet weather," says Sekhon of pineapple express.
The people's terms
People like to describe weather themselves, and they've come up with lots of terms for the local rains.
Mist
This is a super common term, and is sometimes confused with fog. It sits somewhere between drizzle and fog, really. In one government guidebook, mist is used when visibility is reduced, but not as bad as fog.
It is like fog, though, as it's not really precipitation, but really moisture from the ground forming into tiny droplets.
Heavy Mist
The mist or drizzle that really gets into everything and makes people feel quite cold.
Scottish Mist
A mix of fog or mist and drizzle. While not super common, it's made its way from the U.K. to B.C.
Sleet
A mix of rain and snow or snow pellets.
Squall
A sudden storm, accompanied by strong winds, that moves quickly.
Downpour
Sudden and heavy rainfall.
Bucketing
Heavy rain that feels like someone is tossing buckets of rain from far above.
Monsoon
A type of weather that's seen in south and southeast Asia with plenty of heavy rain. It's been borrowed by locals to describe heavy downpours.
Liquid Sunshine
Regular rain.
Spitting
A light rain, often with larger droplets.
Frozen stuff
While Vancouver isn't known for ice storms and snowy days, there's a whole host of other terms for these things. Here are a few that Environment Canada uses.
Ice Pellets
Precipitation of transparent or translucent pellets of ice that are spherical or irregular, rarely conical, having a diameter of 5 mm or less.
Ice Crystals
Snow's sibling, there are times ice crystals that don't have the famed structure of snow are in the air. Instead, they're needles, columns, or plates.
They're kind of like the ice version of fog; these are crystals that usually fall when there's no cloud in the sky. Instead, they form from the ambient moisture in the area.
Snow
Frozen water that's formed into mainly hexagonal ice crystals. Snowflakes form when crystals get stuck together or cluster.
Snow Pellets and Grains
Grains are less than 1 mm in diameter; pellets are usually 2 to 5 mm. Both look similar as they are usually white or opaque and flat, elongated, spherical or conical. They can look like hail, but break up very easily.
Graupel
Hail's cousin, graupel forms when supercooled water droplets (like freezing fog) meet a snow crystal, and they freeze together. They can appear like hail or snow grains on the ground.
With files from Castanet Kamloops
