Vocabulary Commentary

Climate is the average weather conditions of a place; it is made up of the average summer and winter temperature, the amount ofsunshine, the direction of the winds, the average rainfall.

Climate can be cold, dry, wet, mild, tropical, subtropical, continental.

Weather is the condition of the atmosphere at a certain time orover a certain short period. Weather is connected with atmospheric pressure, temperature, rainfall, cloudness and wind.

Weather can be good, bad, fine, excellent, beautiful, rainy, snowy, stormy, dry, hot, cold, cool, warm, pleasant.

Weather (n., unc)

Why do people speak so much about the weather?

The weather was fine and we decided to have a walk.

What is the weather like today?

What will the weather be like tomorrow?

Weather conditions

Look at this list of common weather words. Notice that it is verycommon to form adjectives by adding “-y”.

Noun Adjective Noun Adjective

sun sunny wind windy

cloud cloudy ice icy

fog foggy shower showery

heat hot humidity humid

Cold weather

Chilly (cold but not very), frosts (thin white coat of ice on everything), sleet (rain and snow mixed), slush (dirty, brownish, half-water), blizzards (snow blown by high winds), snowdrifts (deep banks of snow against walls, etc), thaw (change from hard, frozen state to normal), to melt (change from solid to liquid under heat).

e.g. In the north, the chilly days of autumn soon change to the cold days of winter. The first frosts arrive and the roads become icy. Rain become sleet end then snow, at first turning to slush in the streets but soon settling, with severe blizzards and snowdrifts in the far north. Freezing weather often continues inthe far north until May or the ice melts again.

Warm/ hot weather

Close /klovs/ (warm anduncomfortable), stifling (hot, uncomfortable, you can hardly breathe), humid (hot and damp, makes you sweat a lot), boiling (very hot, often used in negative contexts), scorching (very hot, often used in positive contexts), mild (warm at a time when it is normally cold).

Note also: We had a heatwave last month (very hot dry period)

Wet weather

This wet weather scale gets stronger from left to right.

damp drizzle pour down/downpour torrential rain flood

Autumn in London is usually chilly and damp with rain and drizzle.

It was absolutely pouring down or there was a real downpour or it was pouring with rain. This phrase is much more common than “it’s raining cats and dogs”.

In the Tropics there is usually torrential rain most days, and the roads often get flooded or there are floods on the roads.

This rain won't last long; it's only a shower (short duration).

The storm damaged several houses (high winds and rain together).

Thunderstorms

A spell (=period) of very hot weather often ends with a thunderstorm. First it becomes very humid (= hot aid wet), then you get thunder and lightning, and finally, very heavy rain (=itpours with rain). Afterwards, it is usually cooler and it feels fresher.

e.g. The storm damaged several houses (high winds and rain together).

We got very wet in the thunderstorm (thunder and heavy rain).

Lightning. The flashes it lightning were seen in the horizon.

Hailstones were battering the roof of our car (small balls of ice falling from the sky). Hail (uncountable). The sky is a bit overcast (very cloudy). I think it’s going to rain.

Mist and Fog

Haze (light mist, usually caused by heat), mist (light fog, often on the sea, or caused by drizzle), fog (quite thick, associated with cold weather), smog (mixture of fog and pollution: smoke+fog)

Wind

A breeze awind a strong winda gale a hurricane

The first word here is very gentle; the last is more than 100km per hour and can be very dangerous. It was a hot day but there was a lovely breeze.

The windblew my hat off.

There's been a gale morning; it would be crazy to go sailing

The hurricane in Florida destroyed trees and buildings.

The South wind brings wet weather.

The North wind is wet and cold together.

The West wind always brings us rain.

The East wind blows it back again.