Let's Learn English! Topic: The Weather and Natural Disasters 🌤️🌡️🌪️
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Well, hello and welcome to this English lesson about the weather and natural disasters. They kind of go hand in hand. Um this is a lesson that I think you will enjoy because talking about the weather is an important part of small talk in English.

Often when I'm talking to my colleagues at the beginning of the day, the first thing we'll talk about is the weather for some reason. Um it's a common topic because everyone experiences the weather. Everyone needs to go outside or look outside at some point and they will see maybe the sun shining or rain coming down or some other type of weather. So because we live on this planet,

because we all experience weather, it's an important topic to learn when you're learning English. So, once again, welcome to this English lesson about the weather and natural disasters.

nice out. So if we're going to talk about the weather it's important that we talk about when we like the weather and there's two really common English phrases when the weather is very pleasant. We say oh it's nice out today or we say it's a beautiful day. This usually means the weather. Like if I say to someone oh it's a beautiful day today. That means I really like the weather. It normally means I

that the sun is shining. It normally means that maybe there are some clouds in the sky but it's not raining. So, if you were to say to me, Bob, is it nice out at your house right now? I would say no and I'll explain the weather we're getting now but yesterday, it was nice out uh and uh a few days ago, it was a beautiful day. So, if you like the weather, you would say it's nice out or you would say it's a beautiful day.

If the sun is shining, we generally say, it's sunny. So, I am gonna focus in this lesson on the little phrases we use. If Jen says to me, hey, what's the weather like? I could say, oh, it's sunny today. Basically saying, the sun is out. That's the other phrase we use. The sun is out. There's beautiful sunshine coming down. What's the weather like? It's sunny.

this is happening though if there is rain we say oh it's raining. I could say to Jen in the summer sometimes Jen um

will be at market and she might say I think it's raining at home. She might be looking at her phone and looking at the radar and she might say oh I think it's raining at home. Which for us in the summer is usually a good thing. Um for farmers rain does count as a beautiful day. Uh because when it rains the plants get water and then they're able to grow. So you

You might say it's sunny. If the sun is out, you would say it's raining if it is raining and we'll talk more about rain as we get further into this lesson. Of course, in Canada, often, there is snow and you would describe that by saying it's snowing.

the other day my son was going to go driving. He was going to go somewhere and I said be careful. It's snowing outside. When it's snowing outside the roads get a little bit slippery and you need to drive with care. You have to be cautious when it's snowing outside. It's not snowing right now. There's a phrase in the negative. It's not snowing.

But again, I will explain the weather that we are experiencing in just a moment. It's a little strange for this time of year. It's windy.

Nope, it's not windy either right now at my place but when the wind blows, when you walk outside and you have to like lean because the wind is hitting you, we just say it's windy. Oh, it's really windy today. It's windy. Be careful if you are going over. We have a bridge that goes really high over part of Lake Ontario and when it's windy, trucks sometimes go like this on the bridge and it's kind of scary. So, we're

when you have a day where there is a lot of wind we say it's windy. It's definitely not windy right now but it has been. Actually earlier this week it was really really windy. It was so windy that I couldn't go outside to make an English lesson. I had to do it inside instead.

describes today. So right now it's cloudy. It's overcast. This is what the sky outside of my house looks like. There are a lot of clouds. It's not sunny. It's not raining. It's not what are the other ones? It's not snowing. It's not windy. It's cloudy. It's overcast. So when you can't see the sun, it's

When there are a lot of clouds in the sky, this is how we describe it. It's cloudy or it's windy.

We also have this though. Partly cloudy. So on a day like this it might be a nice day. You can see that there are some clouds in the sky but there's also a spot where you can see the blue sky. So we would then say it's partly cloudy. And often when you read the weather forecast it will say tomorrow it's going to be partly cloudy. And

there will be some clouds in the sky but there will be a little bit of sunshine and you will be able to see the blue sky. So it's partly cloudy. Sometimes we have showers. So another way to describe a day when there is rain is to say that there are showers. Um usually we see this word on a weather forecast. I don't often use this word

my everyday conversation. I might say are there going to be showers tomorrow? But usually when you read the weather forecast it will say showers beginning at noon rain heavy at times. That would be like a beautiful weather forecast for a farmer in July. Showers beginning at noon rain heavy at times. I would I would enjoy that kind of forecast. So showers are simply another way to describe rain.

then we have hail. So hail is when you get frozen basically frozen raindrops. Like frozen solid. Like hail hurts. When it's hailing you don't want to go outside. We don't like hail because it will damage things. Hail if it's hailing it will damage your car. If it's hailing it will damage the leaves on plants and trees. So hail

hail is of course small frozen um I I think it's frozen raindrops but sometimes they're bigger than a raindrop like they the other day there was hail or last fall there was hail and it was the size of a golf ball near us. So, hail is not um a nice type of weather. When it's hailing, things will get damaged. It's not good at all.

We also have something called freezing rain. Now this is different than hail because freezing rain comes down as rain. It comes down as water.

but as it lands, it's freezes to whatever it lands on. So, you can see that rain hit these leaves and then the rain, it was even able to drip a bit but it also froze at the same time. Uh freezing rain is a very interesting phenomenon. When you have freezing rain, it's it's something where it's very damaging as well and

to plants. It can also be damaging to like wires and cables like your electrical wires get covered in ice and eventually they might fall and break. So but there's actually something beautiful about freezing rain as well. If we ever get freezing rain, I will be sure to make a video about it so you can see what it's like. The forecast. So the

forecast is when people try to predict what the weather will be like. You can see that last night it was minus one. This is actually the forecast. Right now it's two degrees but tonight it's

going to be minus 12 degrees. Tomorrow morning it's going to be minus six. Tomorrow night it's going to be minus nine. So we're gonna we're definitely heading for a cold spell. I would use the word spell. We're heading for a cold spell. You might also call it a cold snap because it's happening so quickly. So when the temperature quickly goes down

from warm to cold, you might say we're going to have a cold snap but that is the forecast. This is what they think. Chance of showers today. So, there's the word showers but tonight, it will be snow. Tomorrow, sunny.

and minus six degrees and then cloudy. I also want to talk a little bit about temperature here. You can see that it's going to be two degrees. We use the same phrase. It's sunny. It's two degrees. It's raining. It's three degrees. So, you just say it's and then the temperature if you're talking about temperature. I think I have a slide for that coming up.

probably this one. The very next one. So here you can see the temperature. I would say it's two degrees and then I would say it's going to be minus twelve tonight. You also can see here the high and low temperature for the day. So often people will want to know what the high will be and what the low will be. So when you're talking about weather if someone says what's the high gonna be today?

They want to know how warm will it be? In the summer you might say oh the high is going to be 30 degrees Celsius. What's the low going to be? It's going to be well in the summer probably 18 degrees Celsius. So now the high for today is going to be 2 degrees the low minus 12. That's how you would describe the temperature. What's the temperature right now? It's 2 degrees. What's the high? It's going to be 12 degrees.

radar. So I tried to put some labels on this map for you. Radar is what you use when you want to see if rain or snow is coming to your area or if it's already in your area you want to see if it's moving away from you. So on this map you can see there's me at the bottom Bob in Canada and there's Brent. I don't know if you guys know Brent. Many of you do. He's up there in Maine.

So, you can see this was the radar last night. We are actually expecting a snowstorm later today. It's closer than you think but if you see the green, I can't point that far. If you see the green way over there, that is some snow slowly moving to our area. So, radar,

can go on the internet and you can pull up the radar and you can see what the weather is doing and kind of get a sense of where the rain is moving to. So, if you look at the radar for my area right now, the green is a lot closer than it is on this map from last night and generally, just so you know,

Brent gets the same weather as me a bit later sometimes. Um most of the time in North America, the weather patterns are moving from west to east. So, sometimes, I'll get weather and then 12 hours later, Brent gets it. Occasionally, it will be reversed but um that's generally been the trend most of the time.

Humidity. So, humidity is something Bob doesn't like and I should have on this slide put the phrase, it's humid. Humidity is when there's a lot of moisture in the air. When there's a lot of water in the air. So, in the summer, we have a lot of humidity. They'll even say things like this. It's going to be 30 degrees today but with the humidity, it's going to feel like 37 degrees Celsius. It's

So, we also call that the humidex but humidity is um moisture in the air, water in the air uh because that's what air can do. We don't have a lot of humidity in the winter here. The air is actually quite dry. Cold air can't carry as much water or moisture.

This is another way to describe today at my place. It's cloudy but it's also foggy. It's foggy outside so I will need to be careful when I drive to work later. Hopefully, the fog is gone by then but when it's foggy, there is a lot of moisture in the air. I'm assuming when it's foggy, the humidity is like 100% but it's

it's foggy there's so much humidity and water in the air. It's difficult to see very far. Often in the early fall there will be lots of fog because the ground and the water like the river and lakes are still very warm but the air is cold so there's lots of fog that forms. So

Today at Bob's Place, it's rainy. Sorry, today at Bob's Place, it's overcast and it's foggy and it's two degrees. Dew. So, dew is this interesting thing that forms early in the morning in the warmer months in my country. So, in the summer, when you get up early in the morning, everything is actually a little bit wet.

dew forms because of the temperature differences between the earth and the air and water comes out of the air and forms on plants and leaves and those kinds of things. So, it's really cool when you can see the dew. Um it's actually annoying as well because if you go for a walk early in the morning in the summer when there's lots of dew, your shoes and feet get very very wet. So,

Yes, the dew. And then there's frost. So, frost is something that is similar to dew except it is actually frozen because it's so cold outside. We generally only have frost in the fall and

then we have frost again in the spring. Like more than once but usually around late September, early October in my part of the world. Um when you get up in the morning, there will be frost. So, things will have a small layer of frozen water on them. It's basically frozen dew I think. And then also in May,

temperatures are going above zero during the day and like close to zero or slightly below at night, we will have frost in the morning. You might have to even clean your car windows because they will have frost on them.

thunder and lightning. So, when I was a kid, I always loved thunderstorms. I liked hearing thunder and seeing lightning. Uh a lot of times, we would try to guess how far away, how far away a storm was. If we saw the lightning, we would count like 1001, 1002 and then when we heard the thunder, we would say, oh, the storm is

two kilometers away. I don't know if there's any truth to that but as a kid we often would watch thunder and sorry we would watch lightning and hear thunder. So again lightning is an electrical release between a cloud and the ground or a cloud and another cloud and it shows up as a giant spark in the sky. There's a lot of energy in a lightning strike. So here you see lightning in

This actually looks like an AI picture. I think. I'm not sure. Maybe it's real. Um but you see lightning and then a little while later, you will hear thunder because the lightning strike, I think it does something to the air that causes it to um I know this lightning split the air. This is not a science lesson but uh after lightning, you will hear thunder and it's cool. It's it's quite amazing.

Okay, different types of rain. You could say it's spitting. This is when it's just raining a little bit, okay? So, you go outside, you don't need an umbrella when it's spitting. Um it simply means if you looked at a puddle like this, you would see a few raindrops hitting it. Um if it's spitting outside, I will go outside with my camera and make an English lesson. I'm not worried at all. Um

Um when it's spitting, I don't need an umbrella. I don't even really need a jacket. I could easily walk to my car and it wouldn't be a problem. I wouldn't get wet. When it's drizzling, it's raining a little bit more. So, spitting, tiny bit of rain, drizzling, a little more rain. Usually, the raindrops are quite small when it's drizzling but it's definitely a little drizzling

little more rain than spitting. You might need an umbrella if it's drizzling outside. And then we have light showers. When you have light showers it's definitely raining. Um it's not like a downpour or something where you would get soaking wet walking from a building to your car. But definitely light showers means it's raining. Like I would say on a scale of one to five I

This is a three. So, one is like spitting, two is drizzling, three is light showers.

then this is a five. I guess there's no four on my scale. It's pouring. When it's pouring you need an umbrella. When it's pouring even if you have an umbrella you will probably still get a little bit wet. That's generally how it works when it's raining that hard. And of course we have what's called a thunderstorm. So a thunderstorm is a

cloud system, a weather system that brings with it lightning and thunder. So, in the summer, we sometimes will have a thunderstorm at night. It actually sounds like someone stomping on the roof of my house sometimes when we have a thunderstorm but these are fun to watch. Sometimes, we'll stand in the barn and we will watch a thunderstorm roll in and

and we'll watch the lightning and then eventually it will start um eventually it will be pouring and lots of rain will be coming down. But yes, thunderstorms. I think I like thunderstorms

thunderstorm. So, snowstorm, thunderstorm, those are those are good. I like them. A blizzard. A blizzard is when you get snow and then more snow and then more snow and more snow and it keeps piling up and it doesn't stop. When it snows for two or three days, it is a blizzard. Along with the snow, there's usually a lot of wind. So, if I said to Jen, it's snowing,

it's windy and it's going to be a bad drive home from school. I hope this isn't a blizzard. That would mean that there's snow on the ground. There's snow coming down. The wind is blowing and the forecast says it's going to continue. So a blizzard in my opinion isn't as bad as um the

an ice storm. So a blizzard is just lots of snow. Sometimes you're stuck at home for a few days but yeah I haven't experienced a blizzard for a few years. Um they make it very dangerous to drive as well. But again a blizzard lots of snow lots of wind for many days in a row. Hurricane or typhoon or cyclone. So this is a large storm.

North America hurricanes often form in the Atlantic and then they hit land somewhere along the coast of the United States. Usually they come from you know you can this is a fairly accurate map of hurricane season. Sometimes they come from lower but generally they hit in

below where I live in North America. Um and so they're really and what is a hurricane? It's a lot of wind. It's a lot of rain. A lot of high winds like 100 kilometer an hour. 120 kilometer an hour. 130 kilometer an hour winds. Winds which damage things. So when it is hurricane season every once in a while we'll get lots of rain and

because once the hurricane hits land, it starts to slow down and spread out and by the time it gets to my house, it's not a hurricane anymore. Sometimes, it's just a couple days of rain but a hurricane, a very strong storm that uh forms above probably warm water where there's lots of moisture in the air gets very strong, hits the shore. Um

tornado or twister. So, not, oh, I do have funnel cloud. Okay. So, a tornado or twister is when the air is spinning very quickly and it's it kind of forms in the cloud and touches the ground and moves along. In the tornado, the winds are moving

honestly at ridiculous speeds. The spinning of the tornado is so fast. It will just destroy buildings. Um it will flip cars over. Um it is not good. We do not have tornadoes or twisters in my area. Um but in the Midwest of the United States um there's an area that covers a few states where it's very common to have tornadoes during tornado season. Like there's a time of year where they just have more of them. Um

Um so it's it's a weather system that forms a funnel cloud which eventually touches the ground and becomes a tornado. So slight difference. A tornado is actually touching the ground and swirling and moving along. A funnel cloud is like a baby tornado. Again this is not a science lesson but the air and the cloud is starting to spin and it might eventually touch the ground and grow and become a

Uh a funnel cloud. Uh very dangerous. Uh not very um I do not recommend going out if there are funnel clouds and tornadoes in your area. A flood. So, this is a pretty common type of natural disaster around the world. By the way, we just moved into natural disasters. Blizzard's

kind of a natural disaster if it's big enough and long enough. Hurricane definitely tornadoes are a form of a natural disaster and then we have floods. So a flood is when

lack of a better word when there's too much water where there isn't supposed to be water. Usually it might be close to a river or a lake that where the water has continued to rise and now there's water in the town and there's water across the roads and houses are starting to get damaged because there's water in the first floor of the house. So a flood is when you have excessive rainfall. You have too much rain.

And then all of the rivers and streams and lakes get fuller and fuller. The water can't

away fast enough and eventually you will have a flood. We have a small flood a few times a year down by our river but no one has houses close enough for it to do damage because I think people know that the river floods every spring and every fall so no one ever builds houses close to that but a flood too much water where you don't want water.

earthquake is when so the earth is made up of plates. So there are different huge sections that can move and when those sections move all of us little people living on top feel the earth shaking. I've experienced two earthquakes here in my life. We do have earthquakes but all you really feel is the

for a couple of seconds, you're like, you just feel off balance a little bit. Um nothing started shaking or anything like that the last time we had an earthquake but we do have them and they're just very very minor. In some parts of the world, um they'll say that the the earthquake was a certain number on the Richter scale and it and it did damage and and things, buildings fell over um and other things but an earthquake,

um plates of the earth moving causing again all of us little people and all our little buildings like if this is the earth and we're here and then it's just yeah the earth is angry. That's what I would say when there is an earthquake tsunami. So a tsunami is when you have a large wave from the ocean hit the shore and

because there was an earthquake somewhere out in the ocean. So, it caused the water to start to move and that movement of the water comes as a giant wave. So, tsunamis often happen. Well, not often but the last ones have been in the Pacific. Uh we know there was a tsunami that hit Japan years ago um but it is just highly destructive because the wave is

much bigger than what people are used to. When you live on the ocean, there are small waves. It's normal. When there's a tsunami, the wave is five, ten, twenty times bigger than normal and very, very destructive and you don't say the T. This is an English lesson. A tsunami.

volcanic eruption. So, when a volcano erupts, it means that hot magma and lava from the center of the earth has come to the surface and it just kind of explodes and spreads everywhere. So, uh uh volcanic eruption, the last one I think in Hawaii was very destructive and there was lava flowing. Well, there's definitely lava flowing. I don't know all the details of what exactly was happening. Yeah,

on the geothermal level but a volcanic eruption can be very destructive as well. It's the earth is a big place and when the earth starts to shake uh and when the earth starts to form tsunamis and when volcanoes erupt, it's very very dangerous for humans. So, lots of lava will come out which is molten rock that can flow um and it will destroy things.

Then of course forest fire or wildfire. Um I put this lesson together a few weeks ago uh when I was reading about the uh wildfires in Los Angeles. Um and I thought I should do a lesson on weather and natural disasters. I didn't wanna do it right in that time because it when people are experiencing it it's very sensitive to talk about it but um yeah they had wildfires. So the difference between a wildfire and a forest fire is

a forest fire is a kind of wildfire i guess wildfire is a general term for a fire that is out of control burning

grass, brush, bushes, trees, everything in its path. A forest fire is of course just a fire that's out of control in a forest. So, slight difference but you can probably call them the same thing but definitely very destructive and again as I mentioned earlier when it's windy,

it's very difficult to control a fire. I don't know if any of you have ever experienced that. When I had a small brush fire on my farm, it was windy. Jen and I could not control it. We had to call the fire department. So, wind just

makes fire go fast and spread. But anyways, forest fire, an uncontrolled large fire in a forest. Wildfire, an uncontrolled large fire, you know, in an area where there's just lots of dry grass, dry brush, uh bushes, trees, and it just consumes everything. And then there's drought. So, a drought simply put is the opposite of a flood.

When you have lots of rain eventually you might have a flood. When it doesn't rain for a long time you will eventually have a drought. So then a drought is a significant lack of water. When you don't have enough water when there's not enough rain the ground dries up.

things, plants start to die. Animals have trouble finding water to drink. People have trouble finding good drinking water. Um so when you have a drought um it is just it's devastating because it a drought happens slowly as well. Like you slowly run out of water. You slowly um see plants start to die. So and sometimes a drought is also

accompanied with lots of hot weather. So not only is it not raining, but it's sunny every day and things dry up. Not very nice. Droughts are not very nice. 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.