Learning Vocabulary - Storm Eunice | Premier League British Council Partnership

Jack talks about the impact of Storm Eunice and looks at vocabulary related to extreme weather.

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Introduction

Hello, my name’s Jack and welcome to this week’s Premier Skills English podcast.

In the Premier Skills English podcast, we talk about football and help you with your English.

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don’t forget to listen to the end of the podcast because there’s a new football phrase for you to guess!

Introduction to Roleplay

Today, in the UK, we are being battered by a storm called Eunice. In 2014, the Met Office, which is the organisation that monitors and forecasts the weather, decided to copy what happens in the US and started naming major storms.

The Met office is actually the meteorological office, but they have just been called the Met Office for a long time. Meteorological is a horrible word to say anyway.

The Met Office actually works with the meteorological organisations in Ireland and the Netherlands to come up with a list of names in alphabetical order each year. We’ve just had storm Dudley and now, we’re being battered by Storm Eunice.

Scientists have long predicted that we will have more extreme weather as a result of global warming so this storm is part of climate change and that makes it an important event to talk about and ... if you are ever in the UK, weather forecasts and the weather more generally are important topics for small talk so I think it’s going to be useful to look at some of the language from a weather report in more detail.

I have taken a few weather reports from today on the BBC from TV and radio and I have adapted them and combined them into a report that I am going to read for you.

When you listen to the report, I want you to answer a question. The question is where has the most powerful wind been recorded in the UK?

Weather report

Across the UK, people are feeling the effects of the high winds caused by storm Eunice which has caused widespread disruption across large parts of England and wales.

Bridges have been shut because of the wind and parts of the rail network has been closed down and while much of the country is at a standstill there's no shortage of flying debris.

There's a sharply escalating list of power cuts affecting thousands of homes with multiple reports of trees falling, scores of flood warnings have been in place and the majority of schools were closed as a precaution.

Parts of Wales and South West England have seen the worst of it today as wind gusts of 70-80 mph batter the South coast. A record gust of 122 mph was recorded on the Isle of Wight, but the winds are really ramping up now inland across southeast England and towards East Anglia with more 70 to 80 mph gusts which is of course clearly a danger to life with damaging gusts of wind causing widespread destruction.

And there is still a Met Office Red Wind Warning in place throughout the southeast seeing excessive extreme gusts of winds including into London. The Met Office Amber Warning area, covering Wales and a large part of England with the strongest wind transferring further to the east and again with gusts of 60 - 80 mph, there is still a risk to life from these damaging gusts and we know there is widespread disruption out there.

Into tonight, it is going to turn quite chilly. We are going to see more outbreaks of snow in Scotland and Northern Ireland. For a time on higher ground, this will turn frosty and icy in places.

But the most important thing out into the North Sea by this stage will be storm Eunice, it's moving away and the winds are going to be easing.

I wish I had some light relief for the weekend though because there’s another area of rain moving in through Northern Ireland, Wales and England and the northern flank of that, maybe in parts of North Wales, Northern England and the Midlands may see some snow so don't be surprised. It will still be blustery tomorrow, with stronger gusts for a time towards south Wales and southern England 50 to 60 mph so not as bad as we're seeing now on a more widely colder feeling day.

For today, the police are calling on thrillseekers to stay away from the seafront. People across the country are being urged to cancel their travel plans with planes struggling to land at airports and many rail services suspended.

So for the weekend, more wet and windy weather is going to be moving in, but do keep across the latest weather warnings and I’m afraid there are more warnings for the rest of the weekend as well.

Comprehension

Before the weather report, I asked you a question. The question was: where have the most powerful wind been recorded and the answer is the Isle of Wight which is an island off the south coast of England where a record 122 mph gust of wind was recorded. I have never heard of wind like that in the UK.

Language focus

I’m now going to look at some of the language from the weather report. I’m going to talk about vocabulary in three areas: extreme weather, problems caused by the weather and changing weather.

OK, first, extreme weather.

The first phrases I want to talk about related to storm Eunice are widespread destruction and widespread disruption. These phrases come up in every weather report I’ve listened to today. Widespread is an adjective and it means something is happening in lots of places. You might hear widespread flooding or troubles. I think it’s normally collocated with bad things, but you do also hear about politicians or campaigns having widespread support. Because of the storm, in the UK, there is widespread destruction which means many things in many places have been seriously damaged, usually, so they can’t be repaired. There is also widespread disruption. The verb disrupt, is very similar to interrupt. I think normally, we use interrupt to talk about stopping a person from speaking for a short time, but we can also talk about interrupting an event or a service. Usually, though, this is for a short time. Disrupt is used more for systems like travel systems like railways or airports or perhaps services like TV broadcasts or perhaps electricity supplies. If these are stopped because of some trouble then we say they are disrupted. I think disruptions are usually longer and more trouble than interruptions. Right now, because of the storm, there is widespread disruption and the problems are likely to be there for some time.

In the weather report, I said that there were excessive extreme gusts of wind. A gust of wind is like a breath of wind. The wind blows and stops and blows and stops. Each blow, is a gust. The gusts recorded today have been extreme. Extreme is an adjective that means to a very large degree. So extreme heat is very very hot. An extreme gust of wind would be a very powerful ... an unusually powerful gust. Excessive is an adjective that means too much or too many. It’s often collocated with punishment. You may hear of someone being sentenced to a long time in prison for a relatively minor offence and someone might ask if the punishment was excessive. Today, we are dealing with excessive gusts, which means too many gusts and the gusts are extreme.

The last extreme weather language I want to look at is the Met Office Red Wind Warning. So in the UK, there are three levels of weather warning. You get yellow warnings which means you should take care and amber warnings which means you should probably stay home and avoid going out. These warnings are quite common. Yesterday, the Met Office issued, that’s the verb we use with warnings, they issued a red warning which means that the weather is going to be so bad, it poses a danger to life. This is the official language. It means that if you go outside, you might die. I don’t think I can remember the last time there was a red weather warning.

OK, so that’s the extreme weather language. I now want to talk about some problems caused by weather that I mentioned in the report. I think this will be much easier to describe. The first is a power cut. This is what you call it when there is no electricity in your house because of a storm or an accident. You can say that you are having a power cut when there is no electricity. It’s not what you say if the electricity is cut off because you haven’t paid your electricity bill. Then you have been cut off, but if it’s off because of something like a storm, you have a power cut.

Another problem I mentioned was trees falling. I think that this is pretty straightforward. I think that this is usually the most dangerous thing that happens when there is strong wind in the UK. Trees get blown down on roads and people drive into them. You hear about people getting hurt or even killed by falling trees, but I don’t think this means that they are hurt because the tree actually falls on them, though I’m not sure.

In the weather reports and the news, people are warning about flying debris. Debris means bits of stuff that have been broken off bigger stuff. So after a bad car accident, there may be debris in the road. The police will need to make sure the debris is cleared up before they can open the road. Right now, bits of houses and trees are being blown off and are flying through the air so you have to be careful and keep an eye out for flying debris. This word is written d-e-b-r-i-s, but we say debris.

Flood warnings are in place in low lying areas of the country. A flood is when there is water where it shouldn't be. When there is lots of rain, sometimes it doesn’t drain away quickly enough and you have a flood. A flood warning is an official notification by ... I’m not sure who issues flood warnings. I just checked and it’s the Environment Agency in England. Anyhow, it’s an official warning that there may be a flood.

The last bit of language related to problems caused by Storm Eunice is much of the country is at a standstill. If somewhere is at a standstill, it means that people cannot travel around or all activity has stopped. You sometimes hear that a vehicle came to a standstill, meaning it stopped or a service ground to a standstill it means that it slowed to a stop. Today, the country is at a standstill meaning you can’t travel or work or do anything that you would normally do.

The third set of language I want to look at relates to changing weather. In the weather report, I said that the winds were ramping up. A ramp-up means a large increase in something. If something is ramping up, it means the number or intensity of something is increasing rapidly. The opposite, almost opposite is easing off, though this isn’t as dramatic. If something eases off then the number or intensity decreases or goes down. If something eases off, the change is slow. If the decrease is more dramatic then you could say it dropped off.

In the report, I said that the more wet and windy weather was going to move in. We talk about areas of weather, like clouds that move across the country so a storm might move in and then when it passes, we say it moves away.

The last item I want to talk about is quite a common verb for talking about changing weather. I said that it’s going to turn chilly. It’s very common to use the verb turn to talk about changes in weather. It’s going to turn cold. This is far more commonly used to talk about negative changes. Turn cold, turn rainy, turn windy and turn chilly. You can use it to say the weather is going to become warmer or sunny, but I think we use get more with nice weather and turn more with bad weather. We have a lot of bad weather in the UK so it’s still an important bit of language.

OK - that’s a lot of language related to the weather. Listen to the weather report one more time to hear the language in context.