01/08/2026
YORKSHIRE DAY – HOW TO DESCRIBE THE WEATHER IN BROAD YORKSHIRE!
At Blacksmith, we are proud of our Yorkshire values. So today, unafraid of stereotyping, we celebrate straight talking to the point of being blunt, parsimony, and of course ferrets.
Here, for a bit of a laugh, are a few Yorkshire expressions to help when discussing the weather.
• "It's a bit black over Bill's mother's" – said when dark clouds suggest rain is coming. Nobody's quite sure who Bill is, but the phrase has spread well beyond Yorkshire.
• "Chucking it down" – pouring with rain (fairly widespread across the North, not just Yorkshire).
• "Siling down" – another way of saying it's pouring; "sile" is an old dialect word for pouring rain.
• "Perishing" – bitterly cold, as in "eh, it's perishing out there."
• "Nithered" – meaning very cold, usually said about how you feel rather than the weather itself, e.g. "I'm nithered."
• "Mafting" – hot and sticky/uncomfortable, e.g. "it's mafting today."
• "Parky" – a bit chilly (used more widely too, but common in Yorkshire).
• "Letting up" – rain easing off, e.g. "it's letting up a bit now."
• “Starved” - to be freezing cold, “eh, I'm starved, shut that door”
Our favourite being:
"I'm fair mafted after walking up that hill in this weather."
