Learn Weather Expressions in English Visual Vocabulary Lesson
Hi, I’m Gina.
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In this lesson, you’ll learn words and phrases
to talk about the weather in English.
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It’s sunny.
The sun is shining.
It’s bright.
It’s humid.
The air feels heavy.
It’s sticky.
It’s too hot.
There’s a heatwave.
To talk about the weather in English, you
often use ‘it’ plus an adjective.
Before, you heard some examples, including
‘it’s sunny’, ‘it’s humid’ and
‘it’s too hot.’
You can use ‘be’ in different forms to
talk about the past or the future.
For example ‘It was sunny yesterday.’
‘It will be sunny tomorrow.’
‘It has been sunny recently.’
You also heard ‘There’s a heatwave.’
This is another common pattern to talk about
the weather: use ‘there is’ or ‘there
are’, plus a noun.
There’s a strong wind.
It’s windy.
There’s a gentle breeze.
There’s a thunderstorm.
There’s a lot of lightning.
Sometimes, you use ‘it’ with a continuous
verb to talk about the weather.
It’s raining hard.
It’s pouring down.
It’s hailing.
It’s snowing lightly.
It’s snowing heavily.
It’s raining lightly.
It’s a little wet outside.
If you use a continuous verb, you can also
make it past.
For example ‘It was raining hard all day
yesterday.’
‘It was snowing lightly when we left.’
To talk about the future, you can use a
future continuous verb, but it’s more common
to use ‘will’ or ‘going to’ plus an
infinitive.
For example ‘It’s going to pour down soon.’
‘They say it will snow heavily at the weekend.’
It’s overcast.
There’s a lot of cloud.
It’s a grey day.
There’s one more common pattern.
You can use ‘it’s a … day’, and add
an adjective before ‘day’.
You heard ‘it’s a grey day’.
You could also say ‘It’s a cloudy day’,
or ‘It’s a bright day.’
The forest is misty in the morning.
It’s a foggy day.
There’s some fog, but it’s not too thick.
‘Fog’ and ‘mist’ are similar, but
not the same.
Do you know the difference?
Fog is basically cloud which is at ground
level.
Mist is caused by water droplets in the air.
They’re similar, but fog is generally thicker
and lasts longer.
Mist is thinner and normally disappears fast.
Many places are misty in the morning, but
the mist disappears as the sun comes up.
There are some light clouds.
It doesn’t look like rain.
If you hear ‘it looks like rain’, what
will the sky look like?
‘It looks like rain’ means that it’s
likely to rain very soon.
So, the sky is probably overcast, with lots
of heavy, dark clouds.
There isn’t a cloud in the sky.
It’s perfectly clear.
If you describe the weather as ‘clear’,
you mean that there are few or no clouds.
You also mean that the air is clear: there’s
no mist, or fog, or haze, or anything similar.
If it’s clear, you can see a long way.
It’s icy.
The river has frozen over.
If you live somewhere cold, rivers, lakes
and other bodies of water might freeze over.
‘Freeze over’ means they freeze on top,
but there’s still liquid underneath.
If it’s really cold, the river might freeze
solid.
If the river has frozen solid, the whole thing
is ice; there’s no liquid water.
There’s a blizzard – you can hardly see
ten metres!
A blizzard is a kind of storm.
To count as a blizzard, you need heavy snow
and strong winds at the same time.
The recent rain has caused severe flooding
in some areas.
The floods have caused millions of euros of
damage.
Heavy rain can cause floods – or flooding.
‘Flooding’ is a gerund, but it’s often
used as a plain noun.
In the sentences you saw, you could say ‘floods’
or ‘flooding’.
The hurricane is approaching the coast.
It is predicted that the typhoon will make
landfall in the next 24 hours.
The storm will bring gale force winds, with
gusts of up to 80 kilometres per hour.
There are different words for strong winds
and storms.
A gale is defined by the wind force on the
Beaufort scale.
There are different definitions, but anything
above a specific strength is a gale.
What about hurricanes and typhoons?
Do you know the difference?
Hurricanes and typhoons are both powerful
tropical storms, but they start in different
places.
Hurricanes form in the Atlantic Ocean, while
typhoons form in the Pacific.
That’s all.
Thanks for watching!