- a storm of short duration, occurring in mid-April. The earlier quotations for this word seem to focus on the short duration of the storm, often using the term figuratively to refer to a transient situation: An intercepted letter … in which Huntly (in 1594) spoke of the King’s rumoured campaign as likely to turn out a gowk’s storm (Patrick Tytler The History of Scotland 1864). Bragging … that this tempest wil not continew, and that it will pruif but a gowk storm (for thir be the wordis … that thai commonlie vse) (1609 Original Letters relating to the Ecclesiastical Affairs of Scotland ed. David Laing).
However the later evidence makes it quite clear that the gowk’s storm referred to particular seasonal conditions: This district is subject, in the spring season, to a succession of storms called . . . the borrowing days, the Toochet’s storm, the Gouk’s storm (the equinoxial), and the gab of May (New Statistical Account (Moray) 1845). In Scotland . . . the advent of the cuckoo calls forth the old season’s spite, and the consequence is “a gowk storm.” (James Napier Folk Lore: or Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland 1879). The first [of the three cold snaps of spring or early summer] is the “Gowk’s Storm” (from the 11th till the 14th of April), when the cuckoo has just come. This the English call the “Borrowing Days.” (Times 13 May 1930).