 Speaking

 Nobody denies that the weather affects the person’s mood, consequently behavior having either a negative or a positive impact on them. Analyze your friends’ conduct and share your observations on the subject with the other groupmates.

 Reading

Read the text and say which other weather clues you know.

Weather wisdom

Some people watch ants for weather clues. Anytime you see ants industriously building huge mounds around their holes, prepare for rain. About two hours before a downpour, all kinds of ants - but especially large black and red ants - will break up their caravans, scurry into their nests, and begin building dams around the ant hill. These mounds, which are sometimes several inches in height, prevent rainwater from running into the ant hills.

Bees give weather clues, too. They are usually active several hours before a rain, but as the humidity increases, they return to their hives. Some American Indians say that the longer the increased activity lasts, the longer the rain will be.

Other insects are also good humidity indicators. Butterflies usually flit from flower to flower all day long. When they suddenly disappear and can be found hiding on tree trunks or on the underside of leaves, they are seeking shelter to protect their fragile wings from a hard rain.

Fireflies fly very low when there is a high relative humidity. But an old saying states: “When fireflies are about in large numbers, the weather will be fair for the next three days”.

And if you hear lots of locusts singing, you can be sure the air is dry, because locusts sing only when it is hot and dry. Frogs croak when the air pressure falls. Before rain sheep’s wool uncurls.

Plants are also handy humidity indicators. They are affected in different ways. Just before a rain many flowers - like the daisy, dandelion and tulip - close their blossoms, and clover plants draw their leaves together. It is believed that the absorption of moisture from the air causes a change in the leaf stalk, making the leaves turn over. It may be that the rough underside of the leaf can absorb rain better than the smooth topside.

Almost everyone knows what humidity does to hair. Curly hair gets curlier and straight hair gets limp. The reason is that hair absorbs moisture from damp air. Straight hair actually gets longer. A Swiss geologist used this fact to invent the first hydrometer. In 1783 Horace Benedict de Saussure fastened some human hair to a needle. The hair expanded when the air was moist and contracted when the air was dry, moving the needle across a numbered scale. His instrument is called a hair hydrometer and is still used by meteorologists.

Some people are very sensitive to humidity. People who have arthritis are, in a sense, “living hydrometers”. High humidity causes the fluids in their tissues and joints to increase, making movement difficult and painful. That is why many older people say, “It’s going to rain. I can feel it by my bones”. They actually can.

By learning to read weather signs, you can get a few hours advance warning if a storm is heading your way. It may keep you from getting your new shoes ruined in the rain, from having a family picnic spoiled, or your garden beaten down by a storm. If you are backpacking, camping, boating, or doing similar outdoor activities it might even save your life.

Exercise 1

Complete the sentences.

If ants ………………. , prepare for rain.

If frogs ………………. , prepare for rain.

If straight hair ………………. , prepare for rain.

If curly hair ………………. , prepare for rain.

If sheep ………………. , prepare for rain.

If butterflies ………………. , prepare for rain.

If locusts ………………. , prepare for rain.

If fireflies ………………. , prepare for rain.

If bees ………………. , prepare for rain.

If flowers ………………. , prepare for rain.

Exercise 2

Use the word given to form the word that fits in the space provided.

WEATHER PREDICTION

Predicting the weather has always been (0) …..to our lives	Importance	0	important
since (1) … changes can seriously affect crops and therefore	Climate	1
the (2) … of food. Today, forecasters use modern technology	Produce	2
in order to increase their (3) … . Knowing what the weather	Accurate	3
will be like is not only interesting to farmers, it is also relevant
to sports enthusiasts such as (4) … and people who live	Ski	4
in (5) … areas. Despite improvements in forecasting, the	Mountain	5
weather often remains (6) … and this has given forecasters	Predictable	6
a bad reputation. However, the climate s often so (7) … that	Change	7
even experts with latest (8) … find it impossible to make	Equip	8
accurate forecasts. Until further (9) … are made in this field, it	Develop	9
is likely that forecasters will be (10) … to be 100% certain of	Able	10
tomorrow’s weather.