torrent

A violently fast-flowing stream of water — a rush, a flood, a wall of moving liquid driven by steep gradient and sudden volume. A torrent is water in a hurry, ungovernable, carrying everything it can lift. Mountain streams in flood become torrents. Desert washes after cloudbursts become torrents. The word applies to rain itself when it falls in sheets. The sound of a torrent is the sound of the landscape being rearranged.