You know those clouds that have streamers of…something…hanging below them as if it were heavily raining, and yet it doesn’t reach the ground? Perhaps you don’t, as it usually occurs over deserts or at high altitude. I live in a desert at high altitude, so I see it all the time.
But I digress. There’s a word for that meteorological feature! Virga!
(Thanks to Orson Scott Card for bringing this to my attention.)
For more information, try EarthSky.org’s page on the phenomena, along with lots of cool pictures of virga (though there were none of virga above the Kirga River, unfortunately).