Remove that nonsense.

It's raining cats and dogs. Full stop. Supported.

"It's bucketing" is correct in BE, but certainly not "It's bucketing down"

I support the entry as it is :-)
We used to use this expression a lot.
And what is more, there are enough Google hits to confirm it.

Agree with Ghol
This was discussed quite recently:
Siehe auch: raining cats and dogs
and there is plenty of (BE) support for the expression it's bucketing down in that thread, including the piece by Miles Kington to which Anne(gb)gave the link.

Wie wär's denn mit Ergänzung "Brit."?

Gegebenenfalls auch ohne "down", wenn die BE Muttersprachler sich einigen können... ;-)

So it should be marked BE? An AE equivalent then might be

It's raining buckets

or more commonly just

It's (really) pouring


I think we've also had a few 'cats and dogs' threads in the past, and the consensus seemed to be that while all of us still recognize the expression and wouldn't exactly call it outdated, it still feels somewhat dated, not the thing we would most often say ourselves -- at least, not as often as beginning students of English may be led to expect, because they're so often taught it as a picturesque idiom.

OT: Hey, Peter {us}, good to see you around. (-:

Okay, since all three BE contributors agree, it sounds like it's valid BE, though not AE. So keep it and mark it, is that the consensus?

By the way, I'm persuaded by the native feel of the BE speakers, rather than by the search engine hit results.

One should exercise great care in interpreting search engine hit counts. For the double-quoted search "it's bucketing down" I count 348 hits in Google. Given the numbers attained by other valid phrases (and by clearly erroneous phrases) this is meager evidence in favor of it. It does not argue against it, either, I should hasten to add. Just be cautious when interpreting such numbers, and use careful comparisons to draw conclusions.

And a hat-tip to hm--us ;-)

Ich befürworte eine Kennzeichnung als BE.

@Peter:

Vielleicht ist "it's bucketing down" als Suchbegriff schon zu eingeschränkt. Mit "bucketing down" alleine erhält man über 20.000 Treffer, also schon etwas mehr.

Beispielsweise:

1150: Did I say it was raining? Correct that, it's bucketing down and Tiger Woods gets drenched (to add to his woes) as he tees off at the par-three 12. He responds by drilling the ball close to the pin.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/golf/5373026.stm

Outside on the football pitch, all that seems a long way off - it's a damp Wednesday afternoon and the rain has only just stopped bucketing down.

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/features/story/0,,...

PATRICIA HEWITT is suffering from a medical condition in which she says the opposite of what is true. Those close to the Health Secretary accept this and have learnt to cope. So when Pat says “the sun is shining” they know that, in fact, it is bucketing down and to take an umbrella.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,17129...

Trotzdem stimme ich dir zu, dass man Suchmaschinenergebnisse mit Vorsicht zu genießen hat und Aussagen von Muttersprachlern sehr viel mehr wert sind.

@Peter
however 23,000 and a bit more hits for "bucketing down", e.g. "it's absolutely bucketing down" "it could be bucketing down" etc.
And as another BE native I also agree it is common usage and should be marked BE

how colloquial is "it's chucking it down", by the way? Do any of the BE natives here say that?

Jalapeño and Confused GB: thanks for the additional info, including the variants of the original query, but it wasn't necessary, I was already persuaded by the earlier opinions.

What I was addressing in my 08:12 post was just the care needed in using SE hit counts as evidence. Whether it's 348 hits or 20,000 hits has no importance by itself, rather, one must ask, compared to what?

In my case, the 348 for "it's bucketing down" was to be compared to 93,400 for "it's raining cats and dogs". It's a very good idea to vary the query, and I commend you for doing so--such as trying "bucketing down" without the it's; but then that should be compared to "raining cats and dogs" (400,000). Finally, we should all keep in mind the vastness of the internet, and how common typos and even patent nonsense can have a certain number of hits, which doesn't prove anything one way or the other.

I've long believed that SE hit counts are thrown around a lot on Leo as proof of something, without a full understanding of how best to interpret them. Hence my request for people to use them with caution. I fully agree that "bucketing down" should be kept, based on the native opinions expressed here. My point was only, "no need to bring SE counts to bear in order to convince me about "bucketing" but if you do, please use them with care". That's all I wanted to suggest.

@Peter
I agree that google should not be used to validate everything, I was just trying to illustrate that sometimes searching for a strict term can leave out other phrases using the term.
@tanja
Yes, if it's chucking it down, I do say that too!!

I'd have to say that the US version, "It's coming down in buckets (or by the bucket(ful))" is fairly common usage, and I'd suggest that "raining cats and dogs", while humorous, is also far from being obsolete or antiquated. It's primarily humorous coming from a foreigner as it's not expected, just like many Germans might find it humorous to hear an American say "LMAA" or "Halt's maul, doof Kuh!", if they aren't simply offended by it, because it's uncommon for a non-native to know the expression.