Unit III weather and weather conditions

PRETEXT EXERCISES

Ex. 1 Write down the terms connected with weather, transcribe and learn to pronounce correctly.

Ex. 2 Close your copy-books and recollect as many words from your list as possible.

Ex.3 Read the text to answer the question what weather is.

Mark Twain once said: “The weather is always doing something… always getting up new designs and trying them on the people to see how they will go”.

Text a what is weather?

Weather is blue skies, and puffy white clouds; torrential rains with gale force winds; twisters; flashes of lightning; or snow gently falling to the ground. The weather is the state of the atmosphere at any given time, it is experienced everywhere on Earth, it varies considerably from place to place, day to day, and season to season.

Weather is the heat we feel on a summer day. It’s the rain that delays our ball game. It’s the wind that blows leaves off the trees. It’s all this and more. Weather is the condition of the air at any given time and place.

To understand weather, we need to know about air. Air is the mixture of invisible gases all around us. Layers of air form the atmosphere that surrounds the Earth. The atmosphere has five layers, but almost all of our weather occurs in the troposphere, which is the layer of air closest to the Earth’s surface. The air in the troposphere changes constantly. There are four major ingredients that interact to produce this constant change: temperature, wind, air pressure, and moisture (which includes clouds, precipitation, and humidity), These are four major ingredients of weather.

How does weather affect us? A thunderstorm can ruin plans for a picnic. It can be a little more serious for someone who makes a living mowing lawns. Having an accurate weather forecast is important to people doing many different kinds of work. For example, farmers can save millions of dollars a year by knowing when to expect a frost so that they can protect their crops.

Knowledge of the future weather can do more than save money, though. It also can save lives. Advance warning of a tornado can give people time to take shelter in a basement or cellar. People who know a hurricane is coming often have time to prepare their houses and get out of the hurricane’s path. And knowing that storm-force winds are expected gives boaters time to reach a safe harbor.

Depending on where your community is located, you might have seen the effects of extreme weather conditions – such as blizzards (high winds and blinding snow), which might have led to school closings; tornadoes (violent rotating columns of air in which the wind speed usually is 160 – 240 kilometers per hour – though it can be twice as strong), which sometimes destroy entire neighborhoods; or droughts (long periods of dry weather), which often cause farmers to lose their crops.

EXERCISES ON THE TEXT

Ex. 1 Guess the word.

- measured or perceived degree of heat or cold.

- air in natural motion

- visible mass of condensed watery vapour floating in air

- dampness, degree of moisture

- rain, snow falling to ground

- condensation, dampness, humidity

- pressing; force on or against something

Ex.2 Give synonyms.

To put off, to influence, to spoil, to take care, to take place, way, extraordinary.

Ex.3 Say in one word.

Always, all the time; combination, mixing; advance notice; act on each other; outing including outdoor meal; to cut grass; a floor below ground level; underground storage room; component part in mixture.

Ex. 4 Guess the word according to the description.

1 a long period of dry weather

2 a violent windstorm

3 a violent rotating column of air in which the wind speed usually is 160-240 kilometers per hour

4 a high wind and blinding snow

5 a storm of thunder and lightning, usually with heavy rain.

SPEECH EXERCISES

Ex. 1 Answer the questions.

1 What is atmosphere? What does it consist of? 2 What are the major ingredients that interact to produce the constant change of the air? 3 How does weather affect us? 4 How can people use the weather forecast? 5 What kinds of storms do you know?

Ex.2 Speak about the most important things given in the text.

Ex.3 Use the words to the right of the text to form a word that fits in the same number in the text.

TEXT B HOW WEATHER FORECASTS ARE DONE?