Unit 5: Weather vocabulary

Link: http://www.englishclub.com/vocabulary/weather-vocabulary.htm

6.26.2007Unit 5: Weather Vocabulary from http://www.bom.gov.au/info/wwords/
Description of Phenomena

Fog: Suspension of very small water droplets in the air, reducing visibility at ground level to less than a kilometer.

Smog: Smog ( contraction for 'smoke fog') is a fog in which smoke or other forms of atmospheric pollutant have an important part in causing the fog to thicken, and have unpleasant and dangerous physiological effects.

Mist: Similar to fog, but visibility remains more than a kilometre.

Frost: Deposit of soft white ice crystals or frozen dew drops on objects near the ground; formed when surface temperature falls below freezing point.

Precipitation: Any or all of the forms of water particles, whether liquid (e.g. rain, drizzle) or solid (e.g. hail, snow), that fall from a cloud or group of clouds and reach the ground. (See Drizzle, Rain)

Drizzle: Fairly uniform precipitation composed exclusively of very small water droplets (less than 0.5 mm in diameter) very close to one another.

Rain: Precipitation of liquid water drops greater than 0.5 mm in diameter. In contrast to showers, it is steadier and normally falls from stratiform (layer) cloud.

Showers: Usually begin and end suddenly. Relatively short-lived, but may last half an hour. Often, but not always, separated by blue sky.

Blizzard: Violent and very cold wind which is laden with snow, some part, at least, of which has been raised from snow covered ground.

Thunderstorms: Thunderstorms are one or more convective clouds in which electrical discharge can be seen as lightning and heard as thunder by a person on the earth's surface. A severe thunderstorm produces one or more of hail at the ground with diameter of 2 cm or more; wind gusts at the ground of 90 km/h or more; tornadoes; or very heavy rain likely to cause flash flooding.

Tornado: A tall, rapidly rotating column of air between 5 and 1000 metres in diameter which is attached to the base of a cumulonimbus or large cumulus cloud and which is capable of producing damage at the earth's surface.