How to Describe a SNOWY Day in English

So, as you can see,

we're having a bit of a snowstorm today.

A snowstorm is similar to a rainstorm, of course,

except snow comes down instead of rain.

That's probably obvious.

I should mention though, that we're not having a blizzard.

A blizzard is a snowstorm that's really extreme,

where we have lots of heavy snow,

and you can hardly see anywhere.

But I thought, since we're having a snowstorm today,

I should come outside,

and I should do an English lesson

on how to talk about a snowy day in English.

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So when I woke up this morning, the first thing I did

is I checked the weather forecast on my computer.

And it said that we were in a winter storm warning.

A winter storm warning is when it's already snowing,

and it's going to keep snowing for a few hours,

or in this case, for two more days.

So that was kind of exciting.

Then I checked the messaging app that we use for my school,

and it said that today was a snow day.

A snow day is when you don't have to go to work

if you're a teacher,

and you don't have to go to school if you're a student.

So not only do the students get a day off today, I do too.

So that's kind of fun.

I can enjoy this winter storm that we are having.

When I checked the weather forecast,

it said two things about today,

about how the snow was coming down.

It said that there would be periods of snow.

This means that it's going to snow for a bit,

and then stop for a bit, and then start again.

There's just gonna be times of the day when it's snowing.

Although I think they might have been a little bit wrong,

because it's been snowing the whole morning already.

It also said that there would be snow flurries.

Snow flurries are simply when

snow comes a little harder for a little bit,

and then a little softer for a little bit.

I guess snow flurries simply means

that snow is actually falling out of the sky.

It did mention a third thing as well.

It said that we would have 20 to 40 centimeters

of accumulation.

When we use the word accumulation

when we're talking about snow,

it means how much snow is going to end up on the ground

once it stops snowing.

So once this storm moves through,

we will have 20 to 40 centimeters of accumulation.

There will be quite a bit of snow on the ground.

When we talk about snow coming down,

we describe it usually with three different words.

When we want to mention how much snow is falling at once,

we say that it might be a light snowfall,

a moderate snowfall, or a heavy snowfall.

A light snowfall is obvious.

It's when a tiny amount of snow is falling out of the sky.

Moderate would be something like this,

where you can still see my house behind me.

You can still kind of see in the distance,

but it's snowing pretty good.

So I would say this is a moderate amount of snowfall.

And then we have heavy snowfall.

A heavy amount of snowfall usually occurs

when a lot of snow is coming out of the sky.

It's very hard to see in the distance,

and the snow accumulates really, really quickly.

When you're describing a snowy day in English,

you also have to talk a little bit about the wind.

Today, the weather forecast said

that the wind would be blowing at 20 kilometers per hour,

and that it would be gusting to 40 kilometers per hour.

When it is windy,

at the same time as when it is snowing,

we have what's called blowing snow and drifting snow.

Blowing snow is snow that has been scooped back up

off the ground,

or that the wind has picked up out of the air,

and it kind of goes sideways.

You can see a little bit of blowing snow going by me

as I make this video.

But when you have blowing snow, you also get drifts.

You get drifting snow.

This is when the air or the wind

carries snow for a little bit,

and then drops it on big piles.

And those piles are called snow drifts.

In fact, there's one behind me here.

Maybe I'll run over, and stand on it for you.

Give me one second.

This is a snow drift!

You can also see that the drifting snow

has caused a lot more snow to accumulate

in some spots as opposed to others.

So when you have wind, when you have snow,

you get blowing snow, and you get drifting snow,

and you get really cool snow drifts.

Oh, and one other thing about the wind on a cold snowy day,

it actually makes it feel colder than it actually is.

And we call this the wind chill effect.

Today, it's supposed to be minus four,

which is actually not too bad.

That's fairly mild in terms of temperature,

but with the wind, it's going to feel like minus seven.

When it's really, really cold,

when it's below zero, and the wind blows,

it makes human beings,

you sense the temperature a little bit differently.

So even though it's minus four out here,

it feels like minus seven, because of the wind.

We definitely have hazardous driving conditions today.

When it snows, the road gets a lot of snow on it,

and it becomes very slippery,

and it's dangerous to drive on the road.

In fact, right now,

they would say that you should stay home,

that driving conditions are very poor.

It's very hazardous.

In fact, visibility is quite low.

If you were driving a car right now,

you would really have trouble seeing someone.

In fact, let's watch this car go by,

and you'll see how it will eventually just disappear

into the snow.

Eventually you just won't be able to see it.

And as I mentioned earlier, the snow is drifting,

so it's blowing back onto the road

as it lands on the road as well.

So it's definitely not a good day to go for a drive.

Of course, the nice thing is

eventually the snowplow will go by,

and the snowplow will drop some salt and sand on the road,

which makes it a lot less slippery,

and a lot less dangerous.

But actually today,

the snowplow hasn't gone by very often at all.

I think they're waiting for the storm to be over

before they clean everything up all at once.

Well, hey, thank you so much

for watching this little English lesson

about how to talk about a snowy day in English.

I hope you were able to learn a little bit more English

as you watched this lesson.

Remember if this is your first time here,

don't forget to click that red subscribe button there.

And give me a thumbs up

if this video helped you learn a little bit more English.

And I'm just gonna go run and jump in this snow drift.

So have a good day, and enjoy the snow.

That,

that was a lot deeper than I thought it was gonna be.

Bye, everybody.

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