UNIT 4 CLIMATE AND WEATHER

INTRODUCTION

● What is the weather like today?

● What was the weather like yesterday?

● What will the weather be like tomorrow?

These three questions are the most common among people round the world, don’t you think so? Speaking about weather we mean blue skies, puffy white clouds, torrential rains with hail force winds, flashes of lightning; or snow gently falling on the ground. But if we open an English dictionary we find out that “the weather is the state of the atmosphere at any given time everywhere on Earth; it varies from place to place, day to day, season to season”. The long-term look at the weather in a place or region, the averaging of rainfall, the maximum and minimum temperatures is called climate.

4.1 The list of common weather words is very long and we start with some nouns and adjectives. Check your understanding.

And now you can use a dictionary to help you.

► Hot weather

close / stifling – hot and uncomfortable, you can hardly breathe

boiling / scorching – very hot (e.g. boiling day)

warm – pleasantly hot

mild – gentle (winter) weather, when it is not very cold

humid – the air is hot and wet

drought – a long period of time without rain

► Cold weather

cool – pleasantly cold

chilly – a little cold

freezing – extremely cold

sleet – a mixture of snow and rain

frost – a coat of ice

blizzard – a storm with a bit of snow and strong winds

slush – dirty half-snow, half-water (in the streets)

snowdrift – a deep bank of snow

► Wet weather

to drizzle – to rain a bit with very, very small drops of rain

to pour – to rain a lot

shower – brief fall of rain

torrential rain – heavy rain

light rain – little rain

the Monsoon – a rainy season

hail / hailstone – pellets of frozen rain falling from the sky

overcast – very cloudy and dark

thick fog – dense fog

mist – light fog

damp – not dry; slightly wet

flood – overflow of water on a place usually dry; great outpouring

► Windy weather

strong wind – powerful wind

breeze – gentle pleasant wind

gale – very strong wind

thunderstorm – a storm with thunder and lightning

hurricane – a typhoon

► Look at these three ways of talking about the weather.

● Put the words into the correct column:

sunny / sun / hot / snows / snow / snowy / wind / windy / cold / cool / cloud / cloudy / warm / foggy / fog / humid / wet / drizzle / flood / floods / storm

4.2 Match each word with a word from the box.

thunder torrential down heat hail snow gale

4.3 Complete the scales which get stronger from left to right.

a) …….. → wind → …….. → …….. → hurricane

b) boiling → …….. → warm →…….. → …….. → cold → ……..

c) damp → …….. → pour down → …….. →……..

Date: 2014-12-22; view: 1864