Residents of Holt, Missouri, USA, faced over 30cm of rainfall in 60 minutes in 1947, which remains the world record to this day. A one month record is held by the island of Reunion, where the tropical cyclone Denise dropped the downpour of 182 cm of rain in 1966. The highest annual amount of rain fell in Cherrapunji, India. Between 1860 and 1861, the town had to cope with the staggering amount of 26.5 m of rainfall causing a serious deluge!

England has a reputation of an extremely rainy country and there are many sayings about rain in English. When people say “it never rains but it pours” they mean that bad luck and bad things tend to happen at the same time.

The deepest snowfall ever was recorded on Mount Ibuki, Japan, in 1927, where the white fluff formed a 11.82 m deep layer. The spot also boasts the daily record of 2.3m of snowfall, registered in the same year. Other regions where you may get “snowed under” are in the state of Washington, USA. Residents of this area experienced a record 29 m snowfall in the 1998 season and the yearly highest fall of 31.5 m in 1972.

When people say they are “snowed under” they are not really trapped under snow. They want to tell you they are extremely busy with work or things to do. 

When people say that something is “a storm in a teacup” they don’t mean having tea in stormy weather. A storm in a teacup is a situation that is not as important or serious as you think and you shouldn’t worry too much about it.

The Tri‑State Tornado, which spread through parts of Missouri, Illinois and Indiana in 1925, was definitely not “a storm in a teacup”. The twister, considered an F5 on the Fujita Scale, had the longest path length of 352 km, the longest duration of 3½ hours and the fastest speed over land of 117 km/h. Additionally, it was also the single deadliest tornado in United States history, with 695 people killed by the gusts of wind. The deadliest tornado in world history was the Daulatpur–Saturia tornado in 1989, which killed approximately 1,300 people.

The weather observed in South Dakota, USA, in 2010 did quite literally “break the ice”. Residents saw the world‑largest recorded hailstones, over 20 cm in diameter, falling on their homes, cars and other belongings, causing significant damage and creating a floe‑like layer on the pavements. The record of the heaviest single hailstone, resembling a giant icicle and weighing over 2 kg, was registered in 1986 in Bangladesh. Unfortunately, the giant hailstorm that day resulted in at least 92 fatalities.

Breaking the ice doesn’t mean walking on a frozen lake. When you break the ice with your new classmates or teachers you start an interaction or a conversation to get to know each other and feel more comfortable in a new situation.

You are most likely to experience “a bolt from the blue” if you visit Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela. The area holds the record of 297 thunderstorms per year, which means that there are only 68 days free of storms in a single year! The record of the longest lightning bolt, however, belongs to the bolt seen in 2020 in the southern USA, measuring over 750 km, matching the distance between Warsaw and Hamburg!

When we say that something came like a bolt from the blue we don’t mean a storm or a lightning at all. A bolt from the blue is something important or unusual that happens suddenly and unexpectedly.