It was pouring with rain and she was wondering what to do.
This is the sentence which I used answering the question Is it grammatically correct to use two past continuous tenses in a single sentence?.
The sentence is taken from Grammar and Vocabulary for First Certificate by L.Prodromou (2005).
But one commentator said: This may just be me, but "It was pouring with rain" sounds odd to me – not because of the progressive, but because I would expect "It was pouring rain" instead.
In my perception, the idiom "to pour with rain" is just fine. It doesn't sound odd to me. I'm interested in other people's views. Is to pour with rain odd, kind of dated?
Best Answer
You are correct in British English at least.
It can "be pouring with rain", the rain can be "pouring". The commentator is wrong "It was pouring rain" does not work.
Note that "pouring with rain" is a particular kind of rain; as if someone was tipping it out of a bucket. Its not "fine rain", and its not "spitting" rain and its not torrential necessarily
We have as many words or kinds of rain as eskimos allegedly do for snow.