Has anyone else noticed the recent weather rebranding?

“Someday, a real rain will come and wash all the scum off the streets,” predicts Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver. Of course, he became the “rain,” metaphorically speaking, with enough cultural impact that John Hinckley, Jr. was inspired to shoot Reagan. Speaking of rain — Paul Thomas Anderson took symbolic precipitation to new highs (or lows?) when he had a plague of frogs rain down on the San Fernando Valley in Magnolia — one of the most memorable movie moments of the past quarter-century of cinema.

Given such inspiration, why haven’t meteorologists borrowed from this lexicon when rebranding our weather systems? Consider the terms “supercell” and “bomb cyclone,” which sound more like a place to lock up Lex Luther and the box office results for Dwayne Johnson’s Red One. Closer to home, those of us in the San Francisco Bay Area are currently experiencing an “atmospheric river,” which, for Petalumans, translates to “sky slough.”

Remember storms? We used to have storms — just plain storms that arrived with varying degrees of severity. There was “drizzle” (now something dripped over a craft cocktail) and the proverbial “raining cats and dogs,” even though the precipitation of pets has historically been limited to fish and amphibians.

Especially for frogs. It rains frogs more than any other animal. Why? Because cosmic irony demands that an animal that thrives on land and in water should suddenly find itself in the air.

But How?

How does this happen? Stronger storms, like hurricanes and, er, bomb cyclones, can create water spouts when over waterways that suck up the water and everything in it. Then— to quote Annie Lennox — here comes the rain again, but also frogs.

It’s a cruel fate, especially at altitude. It’s also the most memorable sequence in Anderson’s film mentioned above, Magnolia, which is foreshadowed by various Easter Eggs alluding to Exodus 8:2, “…If you refuse to let [my people] go, behold, I will smite all your territory with frogs…”

I’m pretty sure this is what’s going to happen next. It’s going to rain frogs. For the same reason that frogs rained down in Magnolia — there really isn’t any other way out of this third act — this weather, this cultural moment, this calm before the storm/bomb cyclone/supercell.

Yes, young polliwogs, it’s time for an Old Testament god to look down, frown-nod, and say, “It’s a smitey fine time for frogs.”

You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the atmospheric river blows. It’s gonna rain frogs. 

— DH

P.S.: This is frogtastic:

Further Reading: 

Aurora Amidon’s analysis of the The Sacred Frog Storm in Magnolia: Two hours and forty-five minutes into ‘Magnolia,’ frogs start falling from the sky. Here’s why that’s the perfect ending.

When the Rain Comes: …The lyric that really got me, however, was in that paean to precipitation, “Rain.” The song, as everyone knows, is a polyphonic drone, a sort of sweetly-hued dirge that manages to be tuneful despite the fact that it’s essentially just a weird chant.