The remnants of Tropical Depression Christobal produced a brief period of torrential, almost horizontal,  wind-driven rain!

It was almost like that painting by Rousseau—the one with the tiger in the tropical storm.

Then, the clouds parted, and sun through the rain,  sun on the dripping leaves and grasses  Sun and rain is an almost otherworldly combination.  Yes, there is a name for it!  We call this a sunshower.

According to Wikipedia—

A sunshower is usually the result of accompanying winds associated with a rain storm sometimes miles away, blowing the airborne raindrops into an area where there are no clouds, therefore causing a sunshower. Sometimes a sunshower is created when a single rain cloud passes overhead, and the Sun’s angle keeps the sunlight from being obstructed by overhead clouds.

Sunshowers can  occur all over the world, and it seems many  cultures have  a name for this phenomenon. For example—

In southern US, they say the devil is beating his wife.

In  Korea, they call it the tiger’s wedding.

In Japan, it is a fox wedding.

In Zulu folklore, it is a monkey wedding.

You can read more expressions here in this article from babbel.com.

Ephemeral and magical, sunshowers are real!

Interested in more weather terms? You can read about graupel and thundersnow here.

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