Earlier this afternoon, I was eating lunch at the Old Dock with Susan and my niece. We weren’t oblivious to a storm threatening from the west, but we’d managed to wakesurf and slalom before lunch despite foreboding meteorological warnings, and we were willing to risk a few raindrops. Our sun soaked table, air conditioned with a freshening offshore breeze, was perched at the northeast corner of the deck. We focused on the view of Lake Champlain, the Green Mountains, and the ferry boats arriving and departing (instead of the ominous cloud bank darkening the sky inland from us.) I had just settled the check when the first few drops splattered on our heads and plates. We bolted for the car, as the sky opened up. Cats and dogs. Cloudbursts and gully washers. So. Much. Water!
Let’s talk about cloudbursts and gully washers, appropriate euphemisms for the downpours that seem to be increasing in frequency and volume.
It’s a gully washer!
Lately it seems that this slang term for a sudden cloudburst (and the inevitable inundation that follows) has come up in more conversations than not. Sooo many gulley washers… (Source: Gully Washer)
There’s something lyrical, even cinematic, about both terms. As if they come with their own sound effects! 
And we tend to use the terms interchangeably. But, at least in my perspective, they’re not identical references. 
Cloudbursts
A cloudburst emphasizes the cause. Billowing blobs of celestial whipped cream, swelling, puffing, percolating,… until… a downpour. The heavens open up, and an unimaginable dousing ensues.
A cloudburst highlights this dramatic rupture overhead, like a ski high damn suddenly giving way, unleashing vast stores of water in mere moments.
Gully Washers
But a gully washer emphasizes the effect of the rain after it has arrived. Runoff swells beyond barriers. Puddles become ponds become streams, become rivers. Turbulent torrents flood a world that was dry moments before. In short, gully washers are what we experience in response to cloudbursts.
After the Rain…
Eventually the drama yields. Cloudbursts and gully washers become raindrops and rivulets. Clouds part. Sun shines through. A rainbow reminds us that happy endings don’t just exist in storybooks.
After the rain, I carried my niece’s luggage to Susan’s car that will transport her to the ferry and then to the airport where an airplane — and then another airplane — will time-travel her into an exciting new chapter of her life.
Carley will remain melancholy, begrudgingly countenancing the fact that another of her favorite people has come and gone. Susan and I will adapt the void that lingers when family and friends depart. And, like the cloudbursts and gully washers that fleetingly transform our lives but then move on, the three of us will look for a rainbow and begin preparing for a new chapter of our own.
What do you think?