The last few weeks in northern Italy have been unusually rainy. Some days have brought intermittent light showers or drizzle.  Other have kept us mostly indoors due to rain and gloomy, dark skies.  It feels as though overnight we packed away our summer clothes in favor of raincoats, scarves, and boots.

Last week an overnight storm brought a good deal of drama.  It started with a sudden heavy rain, followed by flashes of lightning and big claps of thunder – all of which lasted for hours. As I watched the lightening outside my windows, I began to think of all the Italian words that can be used to describe a storm.

 In Italian, rain is la pioggia. There are two ways to say that it is raining: the simple piove or sta piovendo.  The first is what is most commonly heard. When it has been raining day after day you might hear someone say, with a big sigh, ancora, piove (it is still raining) or oggi è piovoso di novo (today it is rainy again).  When there is just a light sprinkle of rain, piove quattro gocce means literally that it is just raining “four drops”.

 A storm is una tempesta and a thunderstorm un temporale. A temporale is accompanied by tuono (thunder) and fulmine (lightning).  The storm we had here in Lucca last week was preceded by un allerta’meteo, a weather alert. The alert, which came by phone and also on-line, was warranted as this storm was huge! It might have been called an acquazzone (a downpour) or a nubifragio (a cloudburst).  There were floods (alluvioni) in some parts of Tuscany.

There is no Italian equivalent to the American expression “raining cats and dogs”, a direct translation would be meaningless to most Italians.  Rather, sta piovendo a secchiate (it is raining buckets) comes close. 

Quando piove (when it rains) out come the ombrelli (umbrellas) which fill the otherwise dreary streets with lots of color. Without an ombrelli one might have to declare sono bagnata! (I’m wet; or sono bagnato if you are male). 

After the storm passes, the streets are full of – and this is my new favorite word in Italian – pozzanghere (puddles).  

For many years I simply called these laghetti (little lakes) because I didn’t know the correct Italian word.   But now that I’ve looked it up – pozzanghere – it’s just a fun word to say.   

And like children everywhere, there is always one who will sguazzare nella pozzanghera (splash in the puddle). This little guy certainly did!

Since I am not a little one who needs to jump into puddles, the best thing about the pozzanghere to me is how they reflect the architecture of the city. Bell towers, lamp posts, clock towers, and centuries old buildings make for great puddle art.

And sometimes, if you’re lucky, there is also an arcobaleno (rainbow) in the aftermath of the storm. 

 As I write this I am enjoying skies that are cloudy with bits of blue and not a raindrop in sight.  But I did step over a lot of leftover pozzanghere this morning.  And I had my ombrello with me just in case the rain started again.