Let's Learn English! Topic: The Weather and Natural Disasters 🌤️🌡️🌪️ (Lesson Only)

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 and

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.

It's 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 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 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 going to 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, ah, it's raining.

I could say to Jen, in the summer,

sometimes Jen 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 is count as a beautiful

day, um, because when it rains, the plants get

water and then they're able to grow.

So 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.

Uh, 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.

Um, 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 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.

Um, it was so windy that I couldn't

go outside to make an English lesson.

I had to do it inside instead.

This 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, 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.

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 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.

And 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 is, of course, small, frozen.

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 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 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 something where

it's very damaging as well 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 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 going.

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 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 6 degrees and then cloudy.

I also want to talk a

little bit about temperature here.

You can see that it's going to be 2 degrees.

We use the same phrase.

It's sunny, it's 2 degrees.

It's raining, it's 3 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 2 degrees.

And then I would say it's going to be -12 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 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, you 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.

Most of the time in North America, 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 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, 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.

So we also call that the humidex.

But humidity is moisture in the air, water in

the air, 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 when 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'll 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 2 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 small layer

of frozen water on them.

It's basically frozen dew, I think.

And then also in May, when 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, 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 2km away.

I don't know if there's any truth to that,

but as a kid, we often 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.

This actually looks like an AI picture, I think.

I'm not sure, maybe it's real.

Um, but you see lightning, 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. I know.

Does lightning split the air?

This is not a science lesson.

But 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, when it's spitting, I don't need an umbrella.

I don't even really need a jacket.

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.

A 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, this is a three.

So one, like spitting, two is drizzling, three is

light showers, and 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, 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's stomping

on the roof of my house.

Sometimes when we have a thunderstorm, um,

but these are fun to watch.

Sometimes we'll stand in the barn and we will watch

a thunderstorm roll in and we'll watch the lightning.

And then eventually it will start.

Eventually it will be pouring and lots

of rain will be coming down.

But, yes, thunderstorms.

I think I like thunderstorms.

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.

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 and 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 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 in 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 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 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 forms

above probably warm water, where there's lots of moisture

in the air, gets very strong, hits the shore.

Tornado or twister.

So, 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.

It will flip cars over.

It is not good.

We do not have tornadoes or twisters in my area.

But in the Midwest of the United States, 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.

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 funnel cloud.

Very dangerous, not very.

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.

Blizzards, 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, for 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 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 get 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 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.

An 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 have experienced two earthquakes here in my life.

We do have earthquakes.

But all you really feel is 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, they'll say that the

earthquake was a certain number on the Richter scale.

And it did damage and things.

Buildings fell over and other things.

But an earthquake, 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 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.

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 5, 10,

20 times bigger than normal and very, very destructive.

And you don't say the T is an English lesson.

A tsunami, a 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 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 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 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 and it will destroy things.

Then, of course, forest fire or wildfire.

I put this lesson together a few weeks

ago when I was reading about the wildfires

in Los Angeles, and I thought I should

do a lesson on weather and natural disasters.

I didn't want to do it right in that time because it.

When people are experiencing it, it's

very sensitive to talk about it.

But yeah, they had wildfires.

So the difference between a wildfire and a forest fire.

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, 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,

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, it is just.

It's devastating because it hap.

A drought happens slowly as well.

Like you slowly run out of water.

You slowly 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.