This week Morning Brief reader Dick in Illinois writes in to ask "Where does 'cats and dogs,' describing heavy rain, come from?"

Meteorologist Tiffany Savona: Growing up, I would hear my parents say, “It's raining cats and dogs.” As a young child, you just, you know, go with it. You don't really ask too many questions. Now, as an adult, if you really think about what a weird thing that is to say, you have to wonder where did that really come from?

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And there are a number of theories where this phrase originated but the jury is still out on which is the correct one.

My favorite is from the Norse tradition, where dogs were usually seen as symbols of windy weather because of their association with Odin, the Norse god of storms. I also like the idea that the old English word “catadupe,” which roughly translates to waterfalls but sounds a little like “cat and dog” if you say wrong, could have evolved into the saying “cats and dogs.” Maybe people were just saying it was raining waterfalls?

Other people point to the last two lines from a poem by Jonathan Swift describing a downpour in London: “Drowned puppies, stinking sprats, all drenched in mud, / Dead cats, and turnip tops, come tumbling down the flood.” What a grim scene!

Are any of these explanations exactly correct? Hard to say. What’s more interesting to me is to see how, without the technology we have today, people portrayed the intensity or impacts of weather through the way they described it. Without a scientific explanation, you have to use more evocative or mythical language.

Meteorological language today is very different. Take, for example, the way we talk about hurricanes with the Saffir-Simpson scale. I can tell you exactly when that was developed - 1971 - and exactly what it means in terms of wind speed when I say a hurricane is Category 1 or Category 3.

That doesn’t mean it is perfect. I know there are a lot of meteorologists out there that would like another way to categorize hurricanes in addition to just the Saffir-Simpson scale. We just don't want to base impacts on wind because there's storm surge, there's flooding, and there are tornado threats that go into it, as well.

The language we use to describe the weather does matter: It helps communicate dangers and keep people safe. The meteorological community will keep finding new ways to explain it. The communication of weather impacts can always be improved.