Learning English

Introduction

Hot summer weather, love it or hate it, we all love to talk about it. Listen to BBC Weather forecasters and presenters Elizabeth Rizzini and Ben Rich as they talk about summer and how it could be changing. Practise your listening skills and learn useful vocabulary to talk about summer.

1. Comprehension quiz

Watch the video and answer the questions.

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More in this series: How we talk about weather

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2. Vocabulary quiz

Fill the gaps in this quiz to test yourself.

summer solstice
the longest day of the year

urban heat island effect
the effect that makes cities warmer than the countryside around them

humidity
the amount of water vapour in the air

breeze
a cool gentle wind

UV index
a measure of the strength of ultraviolet light from the sun

heatwave
a number of consecutive days above a certain temperature

drought
a period with insufficient rainfall

wildfires
uncontrolled fires that burn vegetation

thunderstorms
electrical storms with thunder and lightning

flash flooding
sudden floods

TRANSCRIPT

Note: This is not a word-for-word transcript. 

Elizabeth Rizzini
Hello, I'm Elizabeth. I'm a weather presenter at the BBC and I love summer. Beaches, long days, short nights, ice cream. It's a fantastic time of year.

Ben Rich
I'm Ben. I'm a meteorologist and weather presenter at the BBC, and I hate summer. I find it too hot, too hot to work, too hot to sleep, too hot to go on the train. I really don't like those high temperatures.

Elizabeth Rizzini
Summer is at different times in different parts of the world. It's around the summersolstice - in June in the northern hemisphere and in December in the southern hemisphere. The days are long, the nights are short and that's partly why I love it.

Ben Rich
But it can feel too hot, especially at nights and especially in cities. There's something called the heat island effect, where cities are hotter than the surrounding countryside and that can make it difficult to sleep. Now, it's not only about the actual temperature. There's another thing called humidity, a measure of how much moisture there is in the air, and that can have a big impact on just how hot it feels.

Elizabeth Rizzini
But when it does get too hot, a lot of people go to the beach. That's because towards the coast you get a sea breeze when the wind comes in from the sea, and it feels cooler. If you are going to the beach though, don't forget to check the UV index. That's an indication of how strong the sun is for your skin.

Ben Rich
If we get many hot days in a row, we call that a heatwave. Now in the UK that's defined as three days or more of temperatures above a certain level. It varies depending on where you are between 25 and 28 degrees. That level will be different in different countries around the world. If it stays too dry for too long, we can have problems like droughts and also wildfires. But summer can also bring heavy rain. We can have thunderstorms and flash flooding, which is where somewhere floods very quickly.

Elizabeth Rizzini
We've talked about summer and what we think of it, but how might summers be changing?

Ben Rich
Well, here in the UK, the five hottest summers on record have all occurred since the year 2000. And during summer all around the world, we are regularly seeing records being broken.

Elizabeth Rizzini
So, summers are getting hotter and for some, drier too. But when we do see rain, it could be very intense and that again could lead to flash flooding.

Ben Rich
So, what's that going to mean for how people spend their summers in future as things continue to get hotter? Well, there are some parts of the world actually, where humans are going to start to find it quite difficult to live during summer as those temperatures continue to climb. And also as rainfall increases in intensity, there will be more flooding to deal with.

Elizabeth Rizzini
So, we've talked about summer and how we feel about it. And we've also mentioned the summer solstice, sea breezes and the UV index. Now I love summer, but as the world gets hotter, perhaps my summer holidays will change.

Ben Rich
And I already find summer a bit too hot. In the city we have the urban heat island effect. Heatwaves, if we have many days of hot weather, high levels of humidity can make it feel even hotter. And as the climate continues to change and our summers get even hotter, people like me and all of us around the world are going to have to find new ways to adapt.

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