Weather words
What is virga?
Virga: rain that gets cold feet halfway down.
Rain or snow that falls from a cloud but evaporates before it reaches the ground.
Get roasted by your own forecastFree, no account, and you pick how rude I get.
“Rain on the horizon. Oh, it’s virga, never landing.”
More about virga
You see it as grey streaks or wisps hanging under a cloud. It is common over deserts and the Great Plains, where the air below the cloud is dry.
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Where the word comes from
From the Latin virga, a rod or streak.
What I think of virga
Virga: rain that gets cold feet halfway down.
Virga is the sky’s unsent text.
Virga: all the drama of rain, none of the follow-through.
Words people compare it with
- Drizzle: Very light rain made of tiny drops that seem to float more than fall.
- Overcast: Completely covered with cloud, so the sun never shows.
- Dew point: The temperature the air would have to cool to before its moisture condenses into dew.
- All weather words