From Gullywashers to Frog-Stranglers: America’s wildest words for heavy rain

Across the country, colorful regional slang captures the many ways rain can fall. A look at how weather words evolve and the science behind them.

What's in a name? For weather fanatics and casual observers, it's always a good time to deploy weather words. Going deeper down that rabbit hole, the National Weather Service (NWS) maintains a glossary with over 2,000 terms, phrases and abbreviations, proof that our relationship with weather is not just atmospheric but also linguistic.

During a late-season monsoon event in Phoenix in September 2025, a local meteorologist described the deluge of rain and accompanying hail as a “gullywasher." It's one of the many artful terms we use to talk about heavy rain, from “toad-stranglers” in the South to the “pineapple express” in California, alongside more technical terms like flash flood or cloudburst.

Here’s a look at some of the quirkiest and most regionally distinct ways we talk about torrential rain and what, if anything, those terms tell us about the weather itself:

Gullywashers

A gullywasher is a slang term for a usually short, heavy rainstorm strong enough to send torrents of water rushing through ditches and ravines, language that is especially used in the Midwest and the West. The term mixes “gully," a small valley or drainage channel carved by running water, with “washer,” capturing how the storm quite literally swabs the landscape clean.

It’s the kind of rain that floods streets, rattles rooftops and vanishes almost as quickly as it arrives, leaving behind mud, puddles and, of course, that distinctive post-storm smell.

Toad-strangler and frog-strangler

A toad-strangler is a Southern classic, a vivid bit of regional slang for a rain so heavy it could drown a toad trying to hop across the road. The term likely originated in the South, where torrential downpours are common, especially during summer thunderstorms. A toad-strangler usually strikes hard and fast, turning dirt paths into streams and filling roadside ditches within minutes. Like a gullywasher, there's a bit more lore here than science, but it perfectly captures that mix of humor and healthy respect this part of the country brings to weather.

Closely related to the toad-strangler, a frog-strangler is another Southern gem, used across the Gulf states and lower Mississippi Valley to describe a rainstorm so intense it might drown the local amphibian population. Like its cousin, it’s all about brief, torrential rain, capable of turning a quaint front yard into a full-fledged pond in minutes.

The Pineapple Express

The Pineapple Express either sounds like a fun train ride or a cocktail, but it’s actually meteorological shorthand for an atmospheric river — a long plume of moisture streaming from the tropical Pacific near Hawaii toward the U.S. West Coast. When it occurs, usually in California, Oregon or Washington during the winter months, it can deliver days of steady rain or even catastrophic flooding. The name nods to its Hawaiian origin and to the tropical moisture it carries, rain that can refill parched reservoirs or push them past their limits.

For instance, California experienced a whopping 38 atmospheric rivers during the 2022-2023 water year. Los Angeles alone received 31.07 inches of rain, more than double the historical average.

Cloudburst

A cloudburst is one of the most dramatic words in the weather dossier. It describes a sudden, violent downpour with extraordinary rainfall rates, sometimes more than several inches in an hour. The term evokes the image of a cloud quite literally “bursting” open, dumping its contents all at once.

A wet downburst or wet microburst is the meteorological term for a cloud that drops all its rain at once.

Cloudbursts are rare but dangerous, especially in mountainous or desert areas where the ground cannot absorb water quickly. They often trigger flash floods within minutes. The term is especially used in the U.K. and India, where it can describe the localized, intense downpours in Himalayan regions like Uttarakhand and Kashmir.

Gullywhumper

Less common but too good to leave out, a gully-whumper is an old Western term for a storm that packs not just heavy rain but also fierce wind and thunder. The phrase captures the reality of a storm strong enough to “whump” the gullies and shake the homestead. Although mostly fazed out of modern use, it’s a reminder that people who lived 100 years ago had a knack for making their weather sound as wild as it felt.

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