Translations for Weather-Descriptions

Question

I am trying to translate some weather descriptions for a weather-application to German. I managed to translate many of them, but I am still stuck with a few. I hope you can help me with it:

ragged shower rain
shower sleet
light rain and snow
rain and snow
sand
dust

My attempts in German:

Regenschauer (but what is ragged in this context)
Schneeregen?
Leichter Schneeregen?
Schnee und Regen?
Sandig?
Staubig?

Do you have better translations, because I’m not quite happy with them, yet.

About the App:

It just shows some basic weather information of the current weather and a 7 days forecast.
For the current weather I also have a weather description, that my weather provider gives me. For these texts I need translations. See attached screenshot. In this example it would be sunny = (sonnig).

But I have some problems with sand or dust for example. What kind of weather-description is sandig or staubig? I have never seen this before …

Good morning. You might get more and better answers if you'd include the app's definition for each item you need help with, and why you're not happy with the translations you found. — hiergiltdiestfu, May 02 '16 at 07:48
I have absolutely no idea... that's why I'm asking... See here (Codes 751 / 761) http://openweathermap.org/weather-conditions — Michael B, May 02 '16 at 09:39
Related: Distinction between “bewölkt” and “bedeckt” — , May 02 '16 at 09:45
By way of comparison, standardized weather reports in the METAR format are used in aviation. This format includes special events such as limited visibility due to dust (DU) or sand (SA). A German translation can be found here. — , May 02 '16 at 10:00
@Loong beat me to it. As a former pilot, I also would have suggested going by aviation weather sites and then their international translations. In fact, you should expand it into an answer! — , May 02 '16 at 23:02
You're right. The weather codes of my weather provider all (at least most of them) seem to use official and standardised weather-codes. This way I will find the 100% correct translations. This should be an answer. ;) — Michael B, May 03 '16 at 06:37
@Loong I think your comment makes the best possible answer here. — tofro, May 07 '16 at 06:25

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 06 '16 at 22:05

For standardised weather descriptions, one can always fall back to the METAR format. The German Wikipedia provides an overview including translations for some but not all of your problematic terms.

Ragged showers or thunderstorms seems to indicate on and off according to bits and bobs of information I found on the internet. Thus I would propose wiederkehrende Regenschauer for ragged shower rain.

Sleet is Schneeregen and showers are of course Schauer, so shower sleet is Schneeregenschauer.

Distinguish between Schneeregen (sleet) and Schnee und Regen (snow and rain). The former is both in one, the latter is both but not at the same time. Probably, we need something like leichter, in Schnee übergehender Regen for light rain and snow.

Sand and dust are visibility issues due to sand or dust. The Wikipedia translations list Sand und verbreitet Staub.

Translations for Weather-Descriptions

1 Answers1