blow a hoolie v. phr. (of weather) to storm; to forcefully gust, blow, and rain. Editorial Note: The stand-alone hoolie ‘a severe storm’ is rare outside of the blow a hoolie construction. It is sometimes spelled hooley. Etymological Note: Perhaps connected to hooley defined by Jonathon Green’s Cassell’s Dictionary of Slang as “a rip-roaring party” and marked as originally Irish, though the sense has a history in the US as well. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Is Murphy’s Law, or the idea that “anything that can go wrong will go wrong,” a slur against the Irish? This is part of a complete episode.
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i first used the term in 1986, conversationally. i don’t know if i made it up or had heard it elsewhere; but i suspect the former.
My late friend said it to me during the 1980’s, always about high winds, he was from Thurso in Scotland and I assumed it was Scots.
The original phrase I first heard was “blowing a hooligan (of a wind)” whilst sailing in mid eighties. Latterly I more often have heard the shortened “blowing a hoolie”.