Problems or events arrive all at once instead of appearing one by one.
Using the reference
Start with topics for discovery. Use the archive only when you already know the phrase and want the older A-Z lookup path.
When it rains, it pours means that trouble, pressure, or major events tend to arrive in a cluster rather than separately.
The phrase captures the feeling that once one thing goes wrong, several other problems suddenly show up too. It can also be used for a flood of tasks or news, but it most often leans negative.
People say this after a run of setbacks, expenses, cancellations, or emotional blows. The tone is often weary, resigned, or darkly humorous rather than dramatic.
The older full proverb is it never rains but it pours. The shorter wording is now more common in everyday speech.
The longer proverb is older than the modern shorter form. The compact version became especially familiar in American English after Morton Salt popularized it in advertising, but the underlying proverb is much older.