Huilbuien

Huilbuien is a colloquial Dutch term for short-lived, localized rain showers. The expression is figurative, likening falling rain to tears from the sky, and is widely used in the Netherlands and Flanders in everyday speech and media. It is not an official meteorological category.

Characteristically, huilbuien are intermittent and patchy; rainfall is typically light to moderate and lasts from a few minutes up to about half an hour, often with breaks in between and sometimes accompanied by temporary sunshine. They tend to occur under unstable atmospheric conditions, especially in spring and autumn when warm, moist air rises and cools rapidly. Because it is a non-technical term, its precise intensity and duration can vary in common usage.

Usage and context: the term is common in ordinary conversation, weather reports aimed at the general public, and social media in Dutch-speaking regions. In formal meteorology, these events are usually described simply as showers or convective showers. The phrase conveys the visual impression of a sky that seems to “weep,” adding a poetic element to the description of unstable, changing weather.

See also: rainfall terminology in Dutch; Dutch weather forecasting and media usage.