drache nationale

The heavy rain that traditionally falls on Belgium's national day

The half-joking name Belgians give to the downpour that seems to arrive without fail every 21 July, right as the national day parade gets underway.

Comme chaque année, la drache nationale a trempé les spectateurs du défilé.

Like every year, the national day downpour soaked the parade spectators.

Drache comes from the verb dracher, whose older root ties back to the Germanic dreschen, meaning to thresh grain, the same hard, beating motion. Belgians noticed the rain has a habit of arriving right on 21 July, the national day, so the two words got welded together as a running joke about the parade always getting soaked.