cloudburst

plural cloudbursts · alternative cloud-burst

1. A sudden heavy rainstorm.

   [H]e walked across the lawn, wet from a fleeting late-afternoon cloudburst, the first rain in a month.

   2007 Feb. 25, Norman Howard, "Devotion, chapter 1" (book excerpt), New York Times (retrieved 20 May 2014)

   3 more examples

   [B]ut the sound . . . expressed an utter abandonment to grief; not the cloud-burst of some passing emotion, but the slow down-pour of a whole heaven of sorrow.

   1899, Edith Wharton, “A Cup of Cold Water”, in The Greater Inclination

   A cloudburst in the China Creek district followed by continued heavy rains was responsible for the increased water.

   1908, Stewart Edward White, chapter 38, in The Riverman

   In Uniontown, Pa., John Walchesky & family rushed from their house when lightning set it afire, rushed in again when a cloudburst put out the blaze.

   1936 August 17, “Miscellany”, in Time, retrieved 20 May 2014

2. figurativelyA sudden downfall or shortcoming.

   "[...] [T]his great storm of a beating would rain down on our backs?" "Yours, at least, Sancho," replied Don Quixote, "must be accustomed to such cloudbursts; but mine, brought up on cambric and fine Dutch linen, of course will feel more deeply the pain of this misfortune.

   Part 1 published in 1605, Part 2 in 1615, translated in 2003, Miguel de Cervantes and translated by Edith Grossman, Don Quixote, page 106