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Exercise 7. Look at the highlighted words in the blogs and discuss what they mean.
Posted: Tuesday 4th September
Yesterday was unbelievable. Though we were warned there was going to be a terrible storm, no one really expected or could possibly have visualized hurricane-force winds destroying bus stops and ripping trees out of the wet soil. They told us not to cycle anywhere and to stay indoors, but I had a job interview in the center so I had to go out.
Thank God I did manage to get there, but I had to grab hold of traffic lights so I wouldn’t be blown into the road. I saw some crazy people on bikes-some of them got blown over and one even seemed to be going backwards. The canals were full of rubbish bins that had got blown in and there were piles of bikes in the streets and broken umbrellas everywhere, which people obviously thought they were going to be able to use and then couldn’t. What a mess.
Posted: Sunday 22nd July
I never knew this kind of heat was possible here. Last Wednesday was the hottest day ever in this country. The roads were melting in some areas, and the underground was a total nightmare – it was like being slowly cooked in an oven. The main problem is that people here don’t seem to understand the need for air conditioning during the summer. There is no escaping the heat and if you actually want to go anywhere, you have to be prepared to sweat and learn to enjoy your task sweating. Even going for an ice-cold beer can be uncomfortable if the pub isn’t at least equipped with a large fan. So I sit here sweating in my living room. The French windows are open but the coolest room in the apartment is the bathroom and sadly there is no Internet connection so I can’t work there!
Exercise 8. Answer the questions. Would any of these three types of weather be surprising where you live? Have you had any surprising weather where you live recently?
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Exercise 9. Here are some more words related to the weather. Match a word from the list (a-i) with a word which collocates (1-9). Make up a micro text using these word collocations.
a torrential 1defences
b high 2 freezing
c ice 3 forecast
d sea 4 gale
e below 5 gusts
f long-range 6 cap
g squally 7 rain
h ozone 8 tide
i force nine 9 layer