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Time For The Annual Guess Start of Rainy Season Thread


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7 hours ago, mudgirl said:

Why do you guys call them rainbirds when they are insects? Just curious.

Because when you start to hear them rain will fall four to six weeks later.   Well thats what I heard.  LCS has some rainbirds on the wall in a display.  They look like big crickets or small grasshoppers.

 

 

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For whatever it's worth, Accuweather thinks that it will rain for the next five days starting tomorrow afternoon.  They seem to be a little better at guessing than the other sites. Last year they called the shot ten days ahead of time for that very wet weekend in March.  They aren't saying it will be heavy.  Just showers late afternoon and early evening.  Accuweather IS saying it will be a wet summer and could kick the Lake up.  As we all know, we only get water from the damns if they have NO place to put it.  Here's wishing.

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13 hours ago, lcscats said:

Because when you start to hear them rain will fall four to six weeks later.   Well thats what I heard.  LCS has some rainbirds on the wall in a display.  They look like big crickets or small grasshoppers.

 

 

That didn't answer my question at all. Why do you call them birds when they are insects? And yes, I know what they look like. They are cicadas.

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The insects tell us it is going to rain at some time in future.  So we call them rain birds.   Rain insects doesn't sound very good at all so Rain Birds. Some folks say they sound like birds more than insects might be what you are looking for.

 

 

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I just call them what everyone else called them when I arrived 16 or more years ago. Not the locals, mind: I've never asked what they call them. If I used colloquial terms here all the time, you'd find me saying "WalMar" and "Ajijee"... along with my own first name, "Mr. Mi".

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The locals here tend to call these vociferous large flying insects Chicharras.   Also, if you look up cicada in the Spanish-English dictionary, chicharra will be the most common translation they will give.  I too have tried to translate verbatim the phrase rain birds into Spanish only to receive quizzical looks from the locals.

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Idiomatic expressions, like humor, seldom translate from one language/culture to another. That is why puzzled looks are so common when it is attempted. It simply makes no sense at all; absolutely none.  So, put that in your pipe and smoke it.

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7 hours ago, ComputerGuy said:

I just call them what everyone else called them when I arrived 16 or more years ago. Not the locals, mind: I've never asked what they call them. If I used colloquial terms here all the time, you'd find me saying "WalMar" and "Ajijee"... along with my own first name, "Mr. Mi".

 

4 hours ago, dichosalocura said:

The locals here tend to call these vociferous large flying insects Chicharras.   Also, if you look up cicada in the Spanish-English dictionary, chicharra will be the most common translation they will give.  I too have tried to translate verbatim the phrase rain birds into Spanish only to receive quizzical looks from the locals.

Thank you both for the explanation. In other words, that's what the gringos called them because they thought they were birds.

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On 5/10/2016 at 0:05 AM, solajijic said:

June 11 mid-afternoon about 3.

 

I will be lamenting the start because THIS is my favorite time of year here and we are not going north this summer so I will have to suffer a rainy season - ugh.

The rainy season is the BEST time of the year

June 15th

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I'm probably cheating because I ran a lightning station

http://en.blitzortung.org/live_lightning_maps.php?map=30

The big storms have been forming for 2 weeks east of here and slowly easing west.  Should be her in about 2 weeks.

There was a storm east of the lake last night about 2am

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The correct name is Chicarra in Spanish for cicada. Some Mexicans may not know the word.  The name is a direct derivation of the Latin cicada, meaning "tree cricket" . Using a translator you may be given slang words as well. 

In Spanish, as in English,  a common word can be used for slang in different areas.  Example in this area a person with a lot of money "tiene la lana"  (has the wool). In DF "tiene la plata" (has the silver) in the USA has lots of dough. 

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38 minutes ago, Mostlylost said:

The correct name is Chicarra in Spanish for cicada. Some Mexicans may not know the word.  The name is a direct derivation of the Latin cicada, meaning "tree cricket" .  

I think almost all Mexicans know the word.

And then there is the chicharra torture device..

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OK, 3/4 inch of rain at the official station, storm came out of the north.  May be just a backlash stream of moisture from that huge low pressure in East Texas and Louisiana.  Let's see if there's a follow on in the next two days.  Easterly flow not really established but at least the 300 mb jet stream from the west seems to be easing.

Interesting, this is the same pattern that gave us that nice downpour a few weeks back.  It didn't last however as it is not a true monsoonal flow.

Wow, the lightning really cranked up when the thing got over the lake.  Did it really pour on the south shore?

 

 

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