Hello again and welcome back to happy hour. In the past few weeks, as we were experiencing the changing season, many people unfortunately got a cold including myself.
Well, that's partially because the weather has been all over the place lately. In some cities, you could easily experience all four seasons within one day. So in today's episode, let us focus on the topic of weather.
Now I know it sounds like a very basic, very easy topic because when you started to learn English, you probably already encountered words like sunny, rainy, snowy. However, if you truly need to listen to a weather forecast in English, many would find that quite difficult. That's because in the topic of weather, there is a whole set of very specific vocabulary and also some fun day to day idioms.
First of all, let us focus on the word 'weather'. When we talk about weather, we generally think of short term, we think about today's weather, or weather in the next five days. And here we also have another word, climate. So we talk about climate change. This is weather over a long period of time.
And people who study climate and weather, they study meteorology. And they're called meteorologist, m e t e o r o l o g i s t. It's a very long word, meteorologist. In day to day conversation, you would often hear people say, feel under the weather, feel under the weather.
This doesn't make a lot of sense, but it actually means you are physically not feeling well. For example, if you have a headache or have a cold, you can say, I feel a bit under the weather this morning. I feel a bit under the weather this morning.
Another common expression with the word weather is 'a fair weather friend', a fair weather friend. I think I mentioned this before. So fair weather means good weather. You probably can guess a fair weather friend is a friend that can only be with you in fair weather.
So if things go wrong, they will no longer be your friends. They will no longer be there for you. 所以不能共患难的一些酒肉朋友，they are sometimes called a fair weather friend.
Most of us think about weather we think of the noun. But actually weather can also be used as a verb. One example is to weather the storm, to weather the storm, means to endure the storm.
And this reminds me of a very famous song from Les Misérables, I dreamt a dream. I'm sure a lot of you have heard of it. And one line in the lyrics says, 'but they are dreams that cannot be and they are storms we cannot weather'. They are storms we cannot weather.
So that's about the word weather itself. Now let's move on to actual weather forecast. What do we actually hear in weather forecast? We talk about today's forecast, five day forecast, seven day forecast or even fifteen day forecast. Let's start with the basics. You would hear things like 'It is sunny. It is clear.
Clear means there is no cloud. And also it is cloudy or it is overcast, overcast means there is no sunshine. Over cast, o v e r c a s t. You might also hear it is foggy. And in cities with air pollution, you would hear the word smog, smoggy, s m o g g y. So these are the basic words.
You won't really hear rainy or snowy that much, because there are more details to those kind of weather. So first of all, let us look at rain. We actually did an earlier episode on rain, all sorts of different ways to talk about rain. But in weather forecast, you're most likely to hear 小雨中雨大雨暴雨或阵雨，yeah?
So in English, you hear there is light rain, moderate rain, and heavy rain. Light, moderate and heavy. After that, you can have torrential rain, torrential rain. This means is even heavier than heavy, t o r r e n t i a l, torrential rain.
This is just about how heavy the rain is, but sometimes you will also have rain that comes very quickly and goes away very quickly. Those are called showers, like the shower you take in the bathroom. So light showers, or thunder showers.

Now, of course, there are days that it's just sunny or just cloudy, but there are also days with changing weather. So you often hear words like cloudy with sunny intervals, sunny intervals 多云渐晴，cloudy with sunny intervals, or cloudy with a chance of light showers. Very common expression, cloudy with a chance of, 多云或有小阵雨，cloudy with a chance of light showers, or overcast with a twenty percent chance of snow.
This is more specific. Overcast is the main weather with a twenty percent chance of snow. A few years back, there was a quite popular animated film called Cloudy was a Chance of Meatballs. I think some of you probably still remember it. 用的是天气播报的词汇，cloudy with a chance of, but instead of rain, the film was called Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.
That was the basic weather. Now let's look at temperature, because that is also a major aspect of weather. Apart from just pure numbers, you would hear words like a high of twenty degrees, a high of twenty degrees, which means the maximum temperature that day is twenty degrees, or a low of ten degrees.
For example. A high of and a low of. And of course, in talking about temperature, you hear Celsius and Fahrenheit. So twenty degrees Celsius or ninety degrees Fahrenheit. What about very, very low temperature? 比如说零下十度。
In English, that is called minus ten. Minus ten degrees. And to talk about temperature change, we say temperatures are going to drop/going down or rise/going up. But when the change is very sudden and very quick, or dramatic, we can also use 'temperatures are going to plunge', which means go down very, very quickly. Going to plunge, p l u n g e, or temperatures are going to soar, s o a r, increase very rapidly. So plunge, going down and soar, going up.
You might also hear words like a warm or a cold front is moving in. This means the cold or the warm air from another region is arriving. A warm or cold front is moving in. If they are extreme weather, then you'll hear weather forecast saying, the temperature hits record high or record low, the lowest or the highest in record or in history.
Hit record high or record low. And of course in summer or in winter, you might experience heat wave or a cold spell. For instance, they can say a heat wave or a cold spell will hit Beijing.
Another aspect you might hear in weather forecast is precipitation, very difficult word, precipitation. This would include things like rain and snow, but also things like freezing rain or sleet, s l e e t. If you're more interested in that, check out a previous episode on snow.
So apart from the general weather, temperature, precipitation, you might also hear humidity level. This is usually a percentage and of course, wind. One thing to note is that in Chinese, we would say 几级风 on a scale. But in English, usually you would just hear the actual speed with the unit of mph - miles per hour. So in English weather forecast, you'll hear a number and mph.
So that's so much about all the detailed aspects of weather forecast. Hopefully now you can understand weather forecast a lot more. In the end, let us look at some fun whether idioms. The first one is out of the blue, out of the blue. Blue basically here means blue sky, out of the blue is talking about something that happened completely unexpectedly. 有点类似中文的晴空霹雳，but it's not as negative.
So for example, she had no idea that anything was wrong until he announced out of the blue that he wanted a divorce. She had no idea that anything was wrong until he announced out of the blue that he wanted a divorce. So this is totally unexpected. With wind， we have see which way the wind blows. I think this one you might be able to guess. In Chinese, we have similar things.
See which way the wind blows. This is to examine closely the situation before making any decisions. So for investors, we have to see which way the wind blows before we invest in the stock market. We have to see which way the wind blows before we invest in the stock market.
The next we have the storm. This we have exactly the same in Chinese, the calm before the storm. For instance, you know that your girlfriend or your wife is mad at you. She didn't say anything to me yet, but I'm sure this is just the calm before the storm. I'm sure this is just a calm before the storm.
Moving from storm to thunder, to steal someone's thunder means to steal someone's credit or to steal someone's moment to shine. You can say for instance, it is my birthday. I can't believe that he is trying to steal my thunder. You are trying to steal my thunder because it should be her day.
Those were some of the idioms relating to weather words. So hopefully after today's episode, you know a lot more about weather, and you will be able to describe whether in more details. And one extra reminder from me, take care of yourselves and don't catch a cold.
I'll see you next time. Bye.

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