Unusual weather
Date: 2015-10-07; view: 433.
For most people, the word weather means the sun, rain, wind or snow. If you live in southern Europe or Africa, you know that temperatures are higher and there is less rain than if you live in northern Europe or Canada. It is unusual for a weather forecast to surprise us.
However, strange weather can occur all over the world. For example, people have seen giant pieces of ice falling from the sky. And what would you think if you saw a ball of light as big as a football on a plane, or floating through your home? Weather experts call these balls ball lightning.
Some storms are very unusual and may cause terrible damage. The English town of Dunwich was once an important port, but in the fourteenth century, high waves and violent storms hit the area and most of the town disappeared beneath the sea. The worst storm in Britain killed more than 8000 people in 1703. The worst flood in history was in 1887 in China when the Yellow River flooded and killed around a million people.
Unusual weather is becoming more common, with very high or low temperatures and very heavy rainfall all over the world. This causes serious droughts in some places and floods in others. However, this is not a modern phenomenon: in Europe in the eighteenth century, there was a Little Ice Age when rivers like the River Thames in England froze.
What will happen to our weather in the future? No one really knows, but one day ‘unusual' weather may not be unusual anymore.
Definitions:
| absorb | if something absorbs liquid, heat, etc., it takes in the liquid, heat, etc., through its surface |
| eclipse (n) | when the sun or the moon seems to disappear, because one of them is passing between the other one and the Earth |
| harmful | causing harm |
| geyser | a hole in the earth from which hot water and steam can suddenly rise |
| sight (n) | the ability to see |
| ultraviolet rays | light which can make people's skin become darker |
| cause (v) | to make something happen |
| drought | a long period of dry weather when there is not enough water |
| lightning (n) | a bright flash of electrical light in the sky during a storm |
| northern | in or from the north part of a country or area |
| occur | to happen, especially without being planned first |
| phenomenon | something that happens or exists, especially something that is unusual or difficult to understand |
| rainfall | the amount of rain that falls on an area in a particular period of time |
| southern | in or from the south part of a country or area |
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