Rain (6 page)
Authors: Melissa Harrison
Cloudburst: sudden, intense rainfall of short duration
Convectional rainfall: rain caused by warm earth heating the air above, which rises and condenses at the dew point
Drizzle: fine precipitation with droplets less than 0.5 mm in diameter
Extreme rain: rainfall with precipitation rates exceeding 50 mm per hour
Frontal rainfall: common in the UK due to our latitude, caused by depressions formed when a cold and warm air mass meet
Heavy rain: rainfall with a precipitation rate of between 4 and 16 mm per hour
Light rain: rainfall with a precipitation rate of between 0.25 and 1 mm per hour
Moderate rain: rainfall with a precipitation rate of between 1 and 4 mm per hour
Orographic rainfall: rain caused by air passing over high ground –
see also
Relief rainfall
Rain: precipitation with droplets of 0.5 mm or more
Relief rainfall:
see
orographic rainfall
Serein: rain from a cloudless sky, usually after sunset
Sleet: mixed rain and snow, or snow that partially melts as it falls
Very heavy rain: rainfall with a precipitation rate between 16 and 50 mm per hour
Very light rain: rainfall with a precipitation rate of less than 0.25 mm per hour
Virga: an observable streak or shaft of precipitation that falls from a cloud but disappears (sublimates) before reaching the ground
Rain
was largely researched and written at Gladstone’s Library in Hawarden, Wales, a uniquely inspiring and uniquely welcoming place. I was lucky enough to be writer-in-residence there, and am grateful for the help and support of all its staff including Louisa Yates, Gary Butler, Phil Clement, Siân Morgan and Ceri Williams. I particularly want to thank Peter Francis, the library’s Warden, for granting me the residency – and for his ongoing support.
Thank you also to Jenny Hewson and Zoë Waldie at RCW, Katie Bond at the National Trust, Julian Loose, Alex Russell, Kate Ward, Kate Burton and John Grindrod at Faber, and to Paul Binnie for his beautiful illustrations; and to my husband Anthony Young, who, with our rescue dog Scout, steadfastly accompanied me on several rainy expeditions.
Particular thanks must go to Matt Taylor of the BBC/Met Office for his help with meteorological matters, and also to Adrian Colston of the National Trust; to William Davis, Paul Evans, Lewis Heriz, Lucy Ingles, Richard Jones, Al Kitching, Helen Macdonald, Peter Moore, Matt Shardlow, Chris Skinner, Mike Toms and
Richard Wilson, all of whom contributed nuggets of information or steered me away from various rain-based infelicities. Any that remain are entirely my own doing.
Thank you to Alison Brackenbury and Michael Schmidt at Carcanet for permission to quote from Alison’s poem ‘Brockhampton’, published in her 1995 collection ‘1829’. Thanks also to writer-directors Peter Middleton and James Spinney for permission to quote from their short film
Notes on Blindness: Rainfall,
which features the words of Professor John Hull. The lines from
Dart
by Alice Oswald (2002) are reproduced here with the kind permission of Faber & Faber.
An Attempt at a Glossary of Some Words used in Cheshire,
communicated to the Society of Antiquaries by Roger Wilbraham in a letter to Samuel Lysons, printed by T. Rodd, 1826
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attributed to Godfridus, 1758 (various dates and printings). First published in 1641 as
The Knowledge of Things Unknowne
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by Gavin Pretor-Pinney, Sceptre, 2006
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by Joseph Taylor, printed by John Harding, 1812
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by H. G. Ames, Christchurch Publishers, 1998
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by Anne Elizabeth Baker, Vols. I & II, John Russell Smith, 1854
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by William Durrant Cooper, printed by W. Fleet, 1836
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by Sir George Cornewall Lewis, John Murray, 1839
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by P. Dinsdale, J. R. Smith, 1849
‘Granite’: a Cornerstones essay for BBC Radio 3 by Peter Randall-Page, 2014
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by the Rev. C. Swainson, William Blackwood & Sons, 1873
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by Oliver Rackham, J. M. Dent, 1986
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by Trevor Rowley, Michael Joseph, 1986
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by Paul Talling, Random House, 2011
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by William Hazlitt, first published in
The Liberal
in 1823
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by Stephen Moss. National Trust report, 2012
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by Katharine Anderson, University of Chicago Press, 2005
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Leonard Digges, London, 1571
Report on national over-abstraction of rivers by the National Rivers Authority (Thames Region), 1989; cited in River Darent Low Flow Alleviation, 1994 (NRA)
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by Tom Fort, Arrow Books, 2006
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by A. Puttock, L. DeBel, D. J. Luscombe, K. Anderson and R. E. Brazier, Environment and Sustainability Institute, University of Exeter, 2014
The Vocabulary of East Anglia: an Attempt to Record the Vulgar Tongue of the Twin Sister Counties, Norfolk and Suffolk, as it existed in the last Twenty Years of the Eighteenth Century, and Still Exists, with Proof of its
Antiquity from Etymology and Authority,
Vols I & II, by Robert Forby, J. B. Nichols & Son, 1830
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by Philip Eden, Macmillan, 1995
Melissa Harrison writes a monthly Nature Notebook column in
The Times.
Her debut novel
Clay
(2013) won the Portsmouth First Fiction Award and was chosen by Ali Smith as a Book of the Year. Her second,
At Hawthorn Time
, was shortlisted for the 2015 Costa Novel Award. It was one of A. S. Byatt’s Summer Reads in the
Observer
, and a Book of the Year for 2015 in the
Telegraph
. She lives in south London.
Founded in 1895, the National Trust is a UK conservation charity, independent of Government, dedicated to preserving historic places and green spaces, for ever, for everyone. The Trust looks after over after over 350 historic houses, gardens and monuments; more than a quarter of a million hectares of the most beautiful countryside; and 775 miles of coastline across England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Fiction
CLAY
AT HAWTHORN TIME
As series editor
SPRING: AN ANTHOLOGY FOR THE CHANGING SEASONS
First published in 2016
by Faber & Faber Ltd
Bloomsbury House
74–77 Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3DA
This ebook edition first published in 2016
All rights reserved
© Melissa Harrison, 2016
Illustrations © Paul Binnie, 2016
Cover design by Faber
Cover image: © Paul Binnie
The right of Melissa Harrison to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
The words ‘National Trust’ and the oak leaf logo are registered trademarks of the National Trust for England, Wales and Northern Ireland used under license from the National Trust (Enterprises) Limited (Registered Company Number 01083105)
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly
ISBN 978–0–571–32895–6
