Human interest in the weather can hardly be overestimated. It has left a clear mark on the language to meet the need for communication about the meteorological conditions.
Recently SMHI announced that Sweden had its first project National Ice Cream Days for over two years, meaning that nowhere in the country does the temperature exceed minus 0.1 degrees for a full 24 hours. With the help of the Institute’s staff, DN has compiled a list of many more or less rare words and concepts that exist to describe the weather.
– Some of it is just internal jargon, but some of it we pass on to the public in series, forecasts or chronicles. “Ideally, the words should be understandable to people, and I think most people understand that,” says Sverker Hellström, a meteorologist at SMHI.
It can be a bit good optimistic hope with concepts like atmospheric bombwhich does not instinctively lead one to believe that the air pressure at the center of a low pressure falls by at least 24 hectopascals in as many hours. That’s not entirely clear either Coffee break means that the tops of clouds are heated by the rising sun, triggering or increasing snowfall – the word alludes to the fact that the phenomenon often coincides with meteorologists’ morning coffee.
– We have adopted some of these expressions ourselves, often from the Anglo-Saxon world. Others we formulated ourselves, such as: Snow cannonsays Sverker Hellström
He worked at SMHI since 1987, at the time of the Word itself Snow cannon Birth in the meteorological sense. Technology had now advanced to the point where you could see snow flurries sometimes settling in a long, narrow band and the precipitation was reminiscent of snow cannons used on ski slopes.
Another word reminiscent of snow cannon is Snow coatbut there is no meteorological definition, it was only coined in April 2000 by a TT author to describe an unusually heavy snowfall in Norrland.
Do new words appear?
– That’s actually the case, and by then it should have snowed at the latest peels off This means a very light, low intensity snowfall where you can see almost every single flake. I think language conservationists would consider it a fairly natural and easy-to-understand construction, says Sverker Hellström.
A language guard noted the new expression chip off is Linnea Hanell from the Language Council, who finds it beautiful and poetic. She points out that language otherwise has so many expressions that encourage us to avoid the weather – it’s bitterly cold, it’s drizzling, it’s blowing lightly, and so on.
– It’s like the weather is something. Perhaps instead one should try to use the possibilities of language to be in the so-called “weather world”. In polls about the most beautiful Swedish words, various weather words are often taken into account, for example the word meteorology Time of day is a real classic.
Dawn, dusk, leaf shadow, summer evening and winter morning are other more or less weather-related words that evoke positive feelings in many people.
Many words also have connections to Anglo-Saxon from the time when English and Swedish were dialects rather than different languages. It can be recognized by the seasons summer/summer or winter/winter, as well as autumn, which is associated with the English harvest. Linnea Hanell points out that these types of general terms have a long history, as do weather phenomena such as snow, fog, rain and sun.
– On the other hand, many evaluative words are newer, i.e. those that evaluate the weather. You might think that a word like Fimbulwinter comes from the Viking Age, but it has only been used since the end of the 19th century. However, Blidväder, which SMHI has on its list, is an example of an evaluative word that is quite old, at least from the first half of the 17th century.
In her position at the Language Council, she is an editor in the group that creates the so-called new word list every year. She says there’s a lot going on in the weather discussion, especially given the climate change debate.
– This means that the weather takes on a different meaning for many people. New weather words appear like in winter what seems to be underway, that is, for the weather during a classic winter month that is not cold or snowy enough to be a meteorological winter. We have the word span, but it didn’t quite make the list.
Facts.SMHI Glossary
DN turned to SMHI to enlist the help of meteorologists and climatologists to list a number of meteorological words or concepts that are often unknown to outsiders. Here it is collected:
Atmospheric bomb: The air pressure at the center of a low pressure falls by at least 24 hectopascals within 24 hours
Snow cannon: narrow bands of heavy snowfall downwind caused by cold
Air passes over relatively warm seas.
National Ice Cream Day: The temperature at all weather stations in Sweden is below 0.0 degrees for a full 24 hours.
Day shift: Sub-zero temperatures are in the air and the snow only melts in the sun.
Mild weather: Plus degrees after a cold period that, for example, leads to melting snow.
Changing clouds: Used by meteorologists only in the summer months when the sun is occasionally obscured by cumulus clouds.
Fluffy factor: Conversion factor from millimeters of melted precipitation to centimeters of fresh snow at different temperatures.
April weather: The meteorological definition of April weather is large weather changes during a day caused by cumulus clouds. The public uses the word frequently, but often incorrectly.
Coffee snow: As the sun rises, the cloud cover warms, causing vertical movements in the cloud and it begins to snow or increases existing snowfall. The word comes as the meteorologists finally sit down for coffee, the snow begins to fall and work calls.
Iron Nights: Occasionally frosty nights in the summer months.
Fairy dance: Low fog over meadows and lakes. The phenomenon has the number 11 as a so-called international synopsis code, so it is “elves” in the double sense.
Tropical night: the temperature does not fall below 20 degrees at night.
Kornblitz: Silent lightning because the thunder is too far away. The name probably comes from the fact that it was previously assumed that a corn lightning was good for the ripening of the grain.
Contents: Water evaporates from a warm lake, meets cold air, condenses and
forms fog.
Sea breeze: The wind caused by the warming rays of the sun blows from the sea over land. It usually peaks in the afternoon and subsides towards evening as the sun sets.
Dust vortex/land devil: Highly solar heated ground causes vertical wind that can begin to rotate.
Water devil: a whirlwind of dust/land devil moving across the water.
Indian summer: warm and sunny days that occur around Brigittentag on October 7th and are preceded by a period of cooler weather. British summers that occur on different dates are called Indian Summers.
Hairdryer: The wind is pushed up a mountain, condenses and falls on the other side at a higher temperature. Gave names to hair dryers.
Norwegian head: a geographical term for a part of the southern part of the neighboring country. Meteorologists often feel like no one else knows what it is.
Pearl clouds: unusual clouds at twice the height of normal clouds).
Night clouds: unusual clouds at eight times higher altitude than normal clouds, at the same altitude as meteorites, and consist, among other things, of fine meteorite dust particles.
Root moist: Rain that reaches the roots of trees in a shorter time, usually at least 25 millimeters.
Amount of precipitation: has a strict definition of 50 millimeters in an hour or 1 millimeter in a minute. Therefore, meteorologists do not want to talk about torrential rain without being clear about the amount.
Frost: Frost that forms in clear air, not through haze or fog.
Moody Flow: a band of really moist and depressing air.
3D weather: Weather with haze, fog and drizzle.
Virgo: Also called autumn streaks, they are visible as threads under clouds down to the ground and represent precipitation that has time to evaporate along the road.
Source: SMHI
Facts.Meteorologists’ own statements
“The clouds are gathering”: describes when summer’s fluffy cumulus clouds lose height and possibly disappear after sunset.
“flaking off”: very light snowfall.
“Like a thick wet blanket”: the gray low stratus clouds that often occur in fall and winter.
“Low ceilings”: low clouds.
“Little wooly-sweet bastards”: stackisar refers to
Stacking clouds – cumulus – clouds that form primarily when the sun can warm the ground sufficiently. It is often an early sign of spring.
SMHI would also like to emphasize that when describing haze, there are strict definitions of what the words actually mean.
The same applies to the wind concepts that SMHI uses.
Source: SMHI
