How to Talk About Extremely Cold Weather in English
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Well, hello and welcome to this English lesson where I'm going to help you learn how to describe extremely cold weather.

It's really cold here right now. In fact, here's the first two things I wanted to teach you. The river is frozen over, but it's not frozen solid. I'm actually standing on the river right now. The ice is probably about four or five inches thick. It's been minus 15, minus 20 for a while. Right now it's minus 12. It's quite cold. So the river is frozen over.

When we say a body of water is frozen over, it means there's no water visible. It's ice everywhere. In fact, if I turn a little bit, you'll see that there's just, I mean, it looks like water, but it's not. This is all ice.

But it's not frozen solid. When we say something is frozen solid, it means that there's no water underneath. Here, if I was to chip through the ice, eventually I would find water and there would be fish and everything down there. If the river was frozen solid, it would mean that it's ice all the way down to the bottom of the river. So there's your first two terms. The river is frozen over, but it's not frozen solid.

So an interesting thing about really cold, extreme weather is that you can see your breath. I'm not sure if you can see it on camera, but when I breathe out, I can see my breath in the air. This happens because there's moisture, there's water in your breath. And when it comes out of your mouth, it turns into small drops that you can see. I wish it was a little more visible. I could just see little wisps of it right now. But another thing that happens when it's this cold, you can see your breath.

So there's something important that you have to do when it's this cold, and that's that you have to bundle up. I am bundled up right now. When you're bundled up, it means you're wearing a lot of clothing. I'm wearing my winter hat. I'm wearing my winter gloves. I'm wearing...

My winter boots. I'm wearing actually several layers of clothing, but I'll talk about that in a little while. So when it's this cold outside, it's important to bundle up. I really like this sweatshirt. This is an athletic sweatshirt because it zips up all the way and it keeps my neck warm. So I have my winter hat, my toque, my gloves, my boots, and this nice thing to keep my neck warm. I am bundled up.

And I'm happy that I wore lots of layers. I'm happy that I'm bundled up because when it's this cold, you have to be careful that you don't get frostbite. Frostbite is when the skin freezes. It happens sometimes on your nose. If you don't have good gloves, it can happen on your fingers. It can happen on your extremities that are exposed to the cold air.

Thankfully, it's not windy out right now. And thankfully, I'm not going to be outside for a very long time. But one thing you have to be careful of, if it's minus 10 or minus 20 or even colder, you have to make sure you don't get frostbite. When I was out walking the other day, I was often walking like this to stop the wind from hitting my nose because I certainly don't want the tip of my nose to freeze. I certainly don't want to get frostbite.

So we're actually experiencing what I would call a cold snap. A cold snap is when it's suddenly colder than normal for a day or two. Usually around this time of year, it's about minus three or minus four, maybe minus six.

but a couple of days ago it was two degrees and then they said it was going to go down to minus 15 and then it came up to minus 11 yesterday down again to minus 14 last night up to about minus three today so i would describe the last couple of days as a cold snap the weather quickly got a lot colder stayed really cold and then it's planning to come back up again so right now we're in a cold snap

So you might be surprised to know that I'm actually quite warm right now. Even though it's extremely cold, I'm warm because I'm wearing lots of layers. Let me describe them to you. I'm obviously wearing socks and my winter boots, but I'm also wearing underwear, long underwear, sometimes called long johns, and my jeans. I'm not going to show you, but underneath these pants, I'm wearing what's called long underwear or long johns.

Up here, I'm actually wearing four layers. I'm wearing a t-shirt, a long sleeve t-shirt. I'm wearing this athletic sweatshirt and I'm wearing my winter coat. And then of course up here, my winter hat and my gloves. Layers are very important when you go out in extremely cold weather. When you dress in layers, it's just a lot easier to stay warm. Layers trap air, I think, and it all acts as insulation. Insulation is something that...

stops cold temperatures from getting through and keeps warm temperatures inside. So if you want to stay warm in extremely cold weather, it's important to dress in layers.

So how would I describe today? I would probably say it's bitterly cold today, or it's freezing cold today, or just it's freezing. Those are probably the three most common phrases that we would use to describe extreme cold. When it's minus two, it's not that cold, it's a little bit cold. But when it's this temperature, when it's below minus 10, we would say it's bitterly cold, it's freezing cold, or it's freezing.

By the way, do you like this tree? Did you, have you hugged a tree today? Aren't you supposed to hug a tree every day? These are my three favorite trees, by the way. I'm not sure if you can see the two in the background as well. They're at the far end of my farm and I often walk here to come and visit them. Sounds kind of funny maybe to visit a tree. By the way, the farm

is way back over there. And yeah, these three trees have been here my whole life. When I was a kid, it was often fun to come and play down here. It's actually also right by the river. So just a little tidbit about Bob's life and go hug a tree today.

So luckily this cold spell did not come with lots of snow. Sometimes when you have a cold spell, it can also be very windy and very snowy. There's just lots of snow coming down and it can cause what's called whiteouts or whiteout conditions. Right now I can see the barn and I can see the house from here, but if we were having whiteout conditions, if there were whiteouts,

there would be so much snow blowing, I wouldn't be able to see them. This is especially dangerous when you're driving. When you drive on the road in the winter and if there are whiteouts, you can't see very far in front of you. Extremely dangerous and not fun at all. Very, very stressful. So thankfully, this little cold spell we're having is just cold. Not a lot of snow, not a lot of whiteouts. Everything has been fairly safe when we're driving on the road. So

That's good. Another thing that can be extremely dangerous when you have extremely cold weather is something called black ice. Black ice is when there's a thin layer of ice on black pavement. And what makes it dangerous is that you can't see it. Black ice sometimes forms at the beginning of a cold snap when the weather's warm and there's a bit of water on the road and maybe it's raining.

As soon as the temperature drops, a very, very thin layer of ice forms on the pavement. And ice is like glass, you can see through it. So sometimes you're driving and there's black ice and you don't realize that it's extremely slippery. Thankfully right now, there's no black ice on the road. It's safe to drive. It looks like the road crews

have kept the road safe by putting down lots of salt to melt any black ice that would form. But yes, another dangerous thing when you're driving in extremely cold weather, watch out for black ice. So thankfully there wasn't a lot of snow during this extremely cold weather and we're not snowed in. You can see the snow is only about two, three centimeters deep, an inch to an inch and a half. And so we are not snowed in.

When you are snowed in, it means there's so much snow that you can't drive out of your driveway. You can't go anywhere until you remove the snow. And sometimes the snow gets so deep during extreme cold weather that you're snowed in. You could also say that you're snowed under.

But this also has another meaning. If you're ever really busy at work or at school, you can say that you're snowed under. So thankfully, we're not snowed in. The snow is not very deep at all. And thankfully, we're not snowed under. And hopefully, you're not snowed under in the sense that you're so busy, you can't get all your work done.

Well, thank you for watching this English lesson. I hope you were able to learn some new English words and phrases that you can use the next time you talk about extremely cold weather. Remember, if this is your first time here, don't forget to click that red subscribe button. Give me a thumbs up. Leave a comment. I love to read them. And if you want to learn more English, I think you know what to do. There's always more English lessons to watch. Bye.

Hi, Bob the Canadian here. Thank you for listening to this English podcast lesson. If you would like to support me in the work that I do as an online English teacher, please visit patreon.com slash bobthecanadian.