The British love to talk about the weather – that is the stereotype at least, and, truth be told, it is not entirely false, particularly when it comes to bad weather. Whereas the Inuit have 50 or so words for different types of snow, the Brits have a colourful collection of expressions to talk about the rain.

Below are some of our favorites… when your teacher asks you to describe the wet weather outside, don´t settle for “it´s raining”, use one of these expressions to brighten up your teacher´s day:

Light Rain

It´s drizzling

It´s spitting

Heavy Rain

It´s pouring (down)

It´s pelting (down)

It´s raining buckets

It´s raining cats and dogs

The heavens have opened

It´s chucking it down (colloquial)

It´s pissing it down (colloquial)

If you find “it´s raining cats and dogs” a rather amusing expression, check out this article on even more weird and wonderful expressions from other languages around the world http://mentalfloss.com/article/12931/16-international-idioms-describe-heavy-rain