M: Hello English learners! Welcome back to EnglishPod! My name isMarco. 
E: And I’m Erica. 
M: And today we’re gonna be talking about the weather. 
E: That’s right, and, you know Marco, this is a really, really useful and important topic in 
English, isn’t it? 
M: Exactly, because if you ever travel abroad, you always wanna know about the weather, 
right? 
E: That’s right, and Anglo people… English people, all they ever do is talk about the 
weather. 
M: Well, it’s an important topic; you wanna know what clothes to wear or if you should take 
an umbrella. 
E: Or even when you’re making small talk with people. 
M: Exactly, so, we’re gonna be taking a look at the weather in the United States, but before 
we get started with the dialogue, let’s take a look at “vocabulary preview”. 
Voice: Vocabulary preview. 
E: Okay, so, we have two words we’re gonna hear in the dialogue. Now, the first one 
is forecast. 
M: Forecast. 
E: Weather forecast. 
M: So, this is what we listen to or what we see on the television - theweather forecast. 
E: Right, it’s like the prediction of the weather. 
M: Okay, so, forecast. Can I only use it in the weather? 
E: No, of… of course, you can use it in many other different situations like in business, for 
example – forecast sales. 
M: Okay, so, the prediction of sales. 
E: Uhu. 
M: Very good, and we have one more word on vocabulary preview – ashower. 
E: A shower. 
M: Shower. 
E: Shower. So, when it… when it rains for a short p… time and it’s now too heavy, that’s a 
shower. 
M: Okay, very good, so, it’s very similar to a… shower at home. 
E: Right, it doesn’t… 
M: It… a little bit of water… 
E: And it doesn’t last too long. 
M: Okay… 
E: Yeah. 
M: Very good. So, why don’t we listen to our dialogue now? We are gonna be listening to 
the weatherman as he describes the weather in Utah. 
A: ...And now, let’s go to Kenny Williams for today’s
weather forecast.
B: Thank you Bill, and good morning Salt Lake City!
A: What’s the weather looking like today, Kenny?
B: Well, it’s a bit of a mixed bag in Utah today; we’ve
got heavy cloud cover here in Northern Utah, and
we’re calling for scattered showers throughout the
day, with a day-time high of forty-five degrees.
Now, if we move down to the south of the state,
we can see that a cold front is moving in. We
can expect clear skies, but it will be quite cold,
with temperatures hovering around the thirty de-
gree mark.
A: It’s a chilly day folks, so don’t forget your coats!
What about tomorrow Kenny? Do you have good
news for us?
B: Well, it’ll be a rainy day for Northern Utah; we can
expect some isolated downpours in the morning.
Winds will be coming in from the North East, with
gusts reaching twenty-three miles per hour. Salt
Lake City can expect the rain to turn to sleet in
the evening. Things are looking a bit better for
the South; we’ll see cloudy skies with a chance of
showers. Later in the day, we can expect partly-
cloudy skies, with a forecast high of thirty-eight
degrees.
A: You heard it folks! It’s gonna be a cold one!
B: That’s right Bill. We will have more later on to-
day on the six o’clock news. That’s the weather
forecast for this morning.
M: Alright, so, we listened to the weather forecast and it doesn’t seem like nice weather in 
Utah, ha? 
E: No, it certainly doesn’t. Uh, I don’t think that I would really, uh, like to live there. 
M: Hehe. Well, maybe it’s winter or something like that. 
E: Well, I guess m… yeah, maybe it’s good for skiing. 
M: Okay, so, now I think it’s time for us to take a look at some of those maybe difficult 
words, that we may have listened to in this dialogue, in “language takeaway”. 
Voice: Language takeaway. 
E: Alright, here we’re gonna look at some words and phrases that you can use to describe 
the weather. Now, the first one – we heard in the weather forecast that they were calling 
for scattered showers. 
M: Scattered showers. 
E: Scatter. 
M: Scattered. If something is scattered… 
E: It’s sort of like, um… it’s a little bit of that thing everywhere. 
M: Okay, so, and we already talked about what showers were. 
E: Right, so, s… shower is, uh, a small bit of… a small amount of rain. 
M: Okay, very good. To better understand when something is scattered, imagine that we 
are in a playground and the children are playing in the playground. 
E: Okay. 
M: So, the children are scattered everywhere; some of them are playing on the swing, 
some of them are playing, uh, on the grass or in the sandbox. So, children… a little bit of 
children in every different spot. 
E: So, if we think that the city is a playground, um, maybe in one part of the city there’s a 
little bit of rain, but not in the other part. 
M: Exactly. 
E: That’s a scattered shower. 
M: Very good! Moving on to our second word – we have hovering. 
E: Hovering. 
M: Temperature’s hovering around the thirty degree mark. 
E: The temperature is hovering around. 
M: Okay, so, when I say the temperatures are hovering… 
E: You mean it’s approximately… 
M: Okay, so, they can move up and down, so, maybe it’ll be a little bit warmer than thirty 
degrees or a little bit colder. 
E: Yes! So, if you think of hovering as floating. 
M: Okay, very good! So, why don’t we listen to some more examples of how we could use 
hovering in different situations? 
Voice: Example one. 
A: Unemployment rates are hovering around the ten percent mark despite the government's 
attempts to stimulate the economy. 
Voice: Example two. 
B: The waiter has kept hovering around us all night; it was really annoying. 
Voice: Example three. 
C: The company’s margin this year is hovering around the forty percent mark. 
E: Okay, so, pretty clear, hovering is sort of floating around one area. 
M: Very good. Now, let’s move on to the next part. We saw that we’re gonna have isolated 
downpours. 
E: Isolated downpours. 
M: Isolated downpours. 
E: Okay, let’s break this one down. Um, let’s start with downpour. 
M: A downpour is when you have a lot of rain, very strong rain. 
E: That’s right, for maybe a short amount of time it’s really raining heavily. 
M: Right, so, that’s what a downpour is. And if we take a look at the first word – isolated… 
E: So, in one small area. 
M: Okay, confined to a specific area. 
E: That’s right. 
M: Okay, so, we have an isolated downpour - it’ll be raining in one specific area. 
E: And you hear this a lot with weather language. You s… hear isolated showers, isolated 
snowstorms. 
M: Exactly, so, it’ll be in a specific area only. 
E: Alright, so, along with the… these showers and rain, we also talked about wind and… and 
we heard that we will have gusts reaching 23 miles per hour. 
M: So, we’re gonna have gusts reaching 23 miles per hour. 
E: Gusts of wind. 
M: Okay, so, can you explain, uh, to our listeners what gusts are? 
E: Okay, so, a gust is a sudden increase in the amount of wind. 
M: Okay, so, maybe we will have normal wind and… and all of a sudden it will get really 
windy. 
E: That’s right, for a short amount of time. 
M: Okay, that’s a gust. 
E: G-U-S-T, gust. 
M: Gust of wind. And for our final word on language takeaway today we’re gonna 
have sleet. 
E: Sleet. 
M: Sleet. 
E: Alright, sleet is a terrible kind of weather, it’s sort of a mixture between snow and rain. 
M: So, sleet is kind of this strange mix between ice and… and rain and snow. So, just 
imagine, it’s not completely ice, so it’s not solid. 
E: Uhu. 
M: But, it’s not water, right? It’s not rain. It’s something… 
E: And it’s not snow either. 
M: No, it’s in the middle. 
E: Okay. 
M: Alright, so, sleet. 
E: But what you really need to know is that it’s terrible. 
M: Haha. Alright, so, that’s all the words we have today for language takeaway. Let’s move 
on now to “fluency builder”. 
Voice: Fluency builder. 
E: Alright, on fluency builder today we’re gonna look at three phrases that are really 
common when you’re talking about the weather. Now, we heard in the dialogue that there 
was a cold front moving in. 
M: A cold front moving in. 
E: A cold front is moving in. 
M: Okay, so, a cold front. 
E: Imagine a wall… 
M: Uhu. 
E: Of cold air. 
M: Uhu. 
E: Um, and it… and it comes towards a place and then it changes the pressure in the 
atmosphere. 
M: Okay, so, uh, very sudden amount of… of cold air that comes into a place. 
E: Right. 
M: So, we say a cold front is moving in. 
E: Uhu. So, we always think of these cold fronts or warm fronts as… as moving. So, you can 
either say they’re moving in or you can say a cold front is coming in. 
M: Okay, very good, and… okay, we have a cold front that’s moving in and we’re gonna 
have winds that will be coming in from the North-East. 
E: Okay, winds coming in from. 
M: Okay, winds coming in from. So, when I say it’s coming in from… 
E: You’re talking about its origin, where it starts. 
M: Okay, so, if I change the noun and I say… and I don’t say winds anymore, but maybe I’ll 
say “my friends”. 
E: Uhu. 
M: My friends are coming in from… 
E: Chicago. 
M: Chicago, so… 
E: Yeah. 
M: They are arriving from Chicago. 
E: Exactly. 
M: What else can I say? 
E: Or you can also say “the kids are coming in from outside”. 
M: Okay, so, where they were before. 
E: Uhu. 
M: Very good, so, coming in from, you can change the noun a little bit and you can form 
these new sentences. 
E: Great! Now, our final phrase – we heard the announcer say “it’s gonna be a cold one”. 
M: It’s gonna be a cold one. 
E: It’s gonna be a cold one. 
M: So, I have this phrase “it’s gonna be a cold one”; what do I mean by a cold one? 
E: Okay, so, the one represents the event, so the day, right? 
M: Okay, so, it’s gonna be a cold day. 
E: Yes. 
M: Okay. 
E: Now, we can obviously change the adjective, right? So, it’s gonna be a hot one; it’s 
gonna be a long one – it’s gonna be a long day. 
M: Alright. 
E: But we… the one can mean anything. 
M: Okay, so, it can be a day, it can be, uh, an event. 
E: Meeting. 
M: Okay. 
E: A project. So, for example, if we’re going to a meeting, I might say “hey Marco, this is 
gonna be a hard one”. 
M: Okay, so, the m… the one represents the meeting. 
E: That’s right. 
M: This is gonna be a hard meeting. 
E: Uhu. 
M: Alright, I think this is a very good phrase and it’s very commonly used. So, why don’t we 
listen to some more examples of how we can use it’s gonna be a something one? 
Voice: Example one. 
A: Temperatures are forecasted to hit 37 degrees today; it’s going to be a hot one, 
folks! [NOTE: 37 degrees here is in degrees Celsiuswhereas in the dialogue the 
temperatures are in degrees Fahrenheitas used in the USA] 
Voice: Example two. 
B: It’s only 8 a.m. and I’ve got a hundred e-mails already; it’s gonna be a long one today! 
Voice: Example three. 
C: I haven’t studied at all for the exam; it’s gonna be a tough one. 
M: Okay, so, some great examples and I think it’s time for us to listen to this dialogue again 
and now we can understand all these words and phrases that we’ve just talked about. 
A: ...And now, let’s go to Kenny Williams for today’s
weather forecast.
B: Thank you Bill, and good morning Salt Lake City!
A: What’s the weather looking like today, Kenny?
B: Well, it’s a bit of a mixed bag in Utah today; we’ve
got heavy cloud cover here in Northern Utah, and
we’re calling for scattered showers throughout the
day, with a day-time high of forty-five degrees.
Now, if we move down to the south of the state,
we can see that a cold front is moving in. We
can expect clear skies, but it will be quite cold,
with temperatures hovering around the thirty de-
gree mark.
A: It’s a chilly day folks, so don’t forget your coats!
What about tomorrow Kenny? Do you have good
news for us?
B: Well, it’ll be a rainy day for Northern Utah; we can
expect some isolated downpours in the morning.
Winds will be coming in from the North East, with
gusts reaching twenty-three miles per hour. Salt
Lake City can expect the rain to turn to sleet in
the evening. Things are looking a bit better for
the South; we’ll see cloudy skies with a chance of
showers. Later in the day, we can expect partly-
cloudy skies, with a forecast high of thirty-eight
degrees.
A: You heard it folks! It’s gonna be a cold one!
B: That’s right Bill. We will have more later on to-
day on the six o’clock news. That’s the weather
forecast for this morning.
E: Okay, so, we know that in English speaking countries the weather is always, always, 
always a great subject of conversation for small talk, right? 
M: Exactly, if you ever wanna talk to somebody or start a conversation, the weather is 
always a number one topic. 
E: Yeah, and we actually have a phrase in this dialogue that’d be great for starting a 
conversation like, for example, imagine if you lived here in Utah, and you were, you know, 
wanting to start a conversation with someone, you could say “it sure is a cold one today, 
isn’t it?” 
M: Exactly, that’s a great way of staring a conversation and English speaking people love to 
talk about the weather as you say. 
E: That’s right, so, guys, if you have any questions about weather vocabulary or if you 
wanna practice talking about the weather, come to our website at englishpod.com. 
M: Right, Erica and I are always there to answer any questions or doubts you may have and 
also if you have any stories about crazy weather maybe in the countries you’re from, let us 
know. 
E: So, thanks for downloading you guys and until next time… Good bye! 
M: Bye!