a hard rain

[joham]

'Quentin had me spend two days sawing the tree up for firewood, and before he could get the carpenters out to repair the damage, a hard rain blew in and soaked some of my books. ' This sentence comes from the CAE.

I've been taught to say 'a heavy rain' rather than 'a hard rain' since I was a child. But just now when I searched the CAE, I found 34 phrases of 'a hard rain' and 62 phrases of 'a heavy rain'. Does that mean 'a hard rain' is a correct phrase to use?

Could I ask native English teachers to help me please? Thank you very much.

[engee30]

Originally Posted by joham

'Quentin had me spend two days sawing the tree up for firewood, and before he could get the carpenters out to repair the damage, a hard rain blew in and soaked some of my books. ' This sentence comes from the CAE.

I've been taught to say 'a heavy rain' rather than 'a hard rain' since I was a child. But just now when I searched the CAE, I found 34 phrases of 'a hard rain' and 62 phrases of 'a heavy rain'. Does that mean 'a hard rain' is a correct phrase to use?

Could I ask native English teachers to help me please? Thank you very much.

Since you can say It was raining harder than ever, I'm sure you can also say hard rain meaning heavy rain.