Crossword clues for freshet
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Freshet \Fresh"et\, n. [OE. fresche flood + -et. See Fresh, a.]
A stream of fresh water. [Obs.]
--Milton.-
A flood or overflowing of a stream caused by heavy rains or melted snow; a sudden inundation.
Cracked the sky, as ice in rivers When the freshet is at highest.
--Longfellow.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1590s, "stream of fresh water; stream flowing into the sea," from obsolete fresh (n.) "a stream in flood" (1530s), also "mingling of fresh and salt water," from fresh (adj.1). Old English had fersceta in the same sense. Meaning "small flood or increased flow of an ebb tide caused by rain or melting snow" is from 1650s.
Wiktionary
n. A flood resulting from heavy rain or a spring thaw.
WordNet
n. the occurrence of a water flow resulting from sudden rain or melting snow [syn: spate]
Wikipedia
The term freshet is most commonly used to describe a spring thaw resulting from snow and ice melt in rivers located in the northern latitudes of North America. A spring freshet can sometimes last several weeks on large river systems, resulting in significant inundation of flood plains as the snow pack melts in the river's catchment area. Freshets occur with generally diminishing strength and duration depending upon the snowpacks having large accumulations and then the local average rates of warming temperatures; late spring melts allowing faster flooding from the relatively longer days and higher solar angle against more southerly latitudes and elevations reaching average melting temperatures sooner where earlier and generally lesser seasonal snow piles melt more gradually spread over a longer melt period. Serious flooding from southern freshets are more often related to rain storms of large tropical weather systems rolling in from the South Atlantic or Gulf of Mexico, to add their powerful heating capacity to lesser snow packs. Tropically induced rainfall influenced quick melts can also affect snow cover to latitudes as far north as southern Canada, so long as the generally colder air mass is not blocking northward movement of low pressure systems.
In the eastern part of the continent, annual freshets occur from the Canadian Taiga ranging along both sides of the Great Lakes then down through the heavily forested Appalachian mountain chain and St. Lawrence valley from Northern Maine into barrier ranges in North Carolina and Tennessee.
In the western part of the continent, freshets occur throughout the generally much higher elevations of the various west coast mountain ranges that extend southward down from Alaska even into the northern parts of Arizona and New Mexico.
The term can also refer to the following:- A flood resulting from heavy rain or a spring thaw. Whereas heavy rain often causes a flash flood, a spring thaw event is generally a more incremental process, depending upon local climate and topography.
- A stream, river or flood of fresh water which empties into the ocean, usually flowing through an estuary.
- A small stream of fresh water, irrespective of its outflow.
- A pool of fresh water, according to Samuel Johnson and followed in Thomas Sheridan's dictionary, but this might have been a misinterpretation on Johnson's part, and it is at best not a common usage.
Usage examples of "freshet".
Freshet or purling brook, of shell or fin, And exquisitest name, for which was drained Pontus, and Lucrine bay, and Afric coast.
It drew him to a thicket of aspen trees, beyond that to a tangle of briars, and then to the clustering stands of sweet pepperbushes bordering a small freshet.
When the dam is built the beavers often dig a channel around either end to carry off the surplus water, and so prevent their handiwork being washed away in a freshet.
Now, in that Japanese sea, the days in summer are as freshets of effulgences.
The nearest railroad connection was Glendive, seventy-six miles up the latter stream, though steamboats took advantage of freshets in the river to transport immense supplies from lower points on the Missouri where there were rail connections.
Nay, What makes this insolent and comely stream Of appetence, this freshet of desire (Milk from the wild breasts of the wilful Day!
We climbed a granite ledge, thick with moss and lichen, wet with the omnipresent flow of water, then followed the path of a descending freshet, brushing aside long grass that pulled at our legs, dodging the drooping branches of mountain laurel and the thick-leaved rhododendrons.