RAINFALL

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does rainfall mean? 

• RAINFALL (noun)
  The noun RAINFALL has 1 sense:

1. water falling in drops from vapor condensed in the atmosphere

  Familiarity information: RAINFALL used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• RAINFALL (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Water falling in drops from vapor condensed in the atmosphere

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural phenomena

Synonyms:

rain; rainfall

Hypernyms ("rainfall" is a kind of...):

downfall; precipitation (the falling to earth of any form of water (rain or snow or hail or sleet or mist))

Meronyms (parts of "rainfall"):

raindrop (a drop of rain)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "rainfall"):

monsoon (any wind that changes direction with the seasons)

rainstorm (a storm with rain)

cloudburst; deluge; downpour; pelter; soaker; torrent; waterspout (a heavy rain)

drizzle; mizzle (very light rain; stronger than mist but less than a shower)

rain shower; shower (a brief period of precipitation)

 Context examples 

Regions in coastal France received as much as six inches of rainfall.

(France's Flooding Rains Examined by NASA’s IMERG, NASA)

Young stalagmite material built up quickly, enabling the study of rainfall patterns over the last 50 years.

(Cave stalagmites reveal India’s rainfall secrets, SciDev.Net)

Lacking moisture, especially having insufficient rainfall to support trees or woody plants.

(Arid, NOAA Paleoclimate Glossary)

The sediment analyzed from locations along the lake shows that rainfall levels 35,000 to 100,000 years ago were about 28 inches, or almost half what they are today.

(Environmental change in Africa: Will it lead to a drying Lake Victoria?, National Science Foundation)

Many dune fields around the world have undergone alternating periods of mobilization and stabilization in response to changes in winds and rainfall.

(Sleeping sands of the Kalahari awaken after more than 10,000 years, NSF)

Now, the researchers analysed the different isotopes of water trapped within the crystal structure of the gypsum to determine changes in rainfall and relative humidity during the Maya downfall.

(Scientists measure severity of drought during the Maya collapse, University of Cambridge)

In the two following years of more abundant snow and rainfall, the mountains have regained about half as much water in the rock as they had lost in the preceding drought and have fallen about half an inch (12 millimeters) in height.

(Sierras Lost Water Weight, Grew Taller During Drought, NASA)

They examined whether patterns of community structure were best explained by recent or prehistoric human activity and by present-day or paleoclimate changes — in temperature from 22,000 years ago to the present, and in rainfall from 6,000 years ago to the present.

(Connecting the prehistoric past to the global future, National Science Foundation)

There’s also a GPM constellation of satellites that provide additional rainfall data to provide a more comprehensive picture of events.

(France's Flooding Rains Examined by NASA’s IMERG, NASA)

This is an unexpected finding because many of the earlier records were based on the idea that only summer monsoon rainfall was recorded by these minerals.

(Cave stalagmites reveal India’s rainfall secrets, SciDev.Net)