26. Read the text and talk about the climate in your city or town, using the expressions from the text. Compare it with that of London, Moscow or St.Petersburg. Climate and Weather

The climate of England is milder than the climate in many other countries. The winters are warmer and the summers are cooler than on the Continent. It is never too cold or too hot there. The two worst months in England are January and February. In the North the winters are colder. “It is as frosty in Scotland as it is in St. Petersburg. Cold weather is more pleasant than wet weather”, English people say. Spring is certainly the best season of the year in England.

And what is the climate like in the European part of Russia? The winters in Moscow are colder than in London. There is always a lot of snow in winter. The average temperature is 10 – 11 degrees Centigrade below zero in January. Winter is a good time for such sports as skiing, hockey and skating. Almost all people like spring: the trees are green and there is plenty of sunshine. Autumn is the worst season. It often rains hard and the sky is cloudy. Some people believe that summer is the best season of the year.

27. Read the text and say how weather influences people and you personally. What is Weather?

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 and humidity). These are the 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 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 part. And knowing that storm-force winds are expected gives boaters time to reach safe harbour.

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.