3. Memorable weather

Transcript item

So I'm going to tell you about a dramatic weather experience that I had on holiday in Nîmes, in France. Well, I wasn't actually staying in Nîmes, but this happened in Nîmes, and I'll show you the photo. So, here you go, here's the photo. You can actually see me there in my twenties, looking at the flooding. I'd got out of the car to have a look, actually, at what was happening in the streets. So, this day, it was the last day of our holiday. Actually, the plan was to go for dinner to celebrate my birthday. But, unfortunately, as we travelled back from our day trip, we passed through Nîmes and ran into trouble because ... I don't know if you know Nîmes, but it's an ancient Roman city, or there's Roman remains there. And it has these walls around the city. So I don't know what happened particularly that afternoon, but after all the rain that we'd had in the previous two weeks, it just started filling up. It was like a giant bathtub. So driving through in the car, we suddenly realised that wherever we turned we just kind of had, like, water coming towards us. And we started to get really worried because it wasn't our car. It was a hire car. And sometimes when you hire a car, the insurance doesn't cover you for things like natural disasters. So we really didn't want the water to get in the engine and then have to pay for the damage. That was the big worry. So what we ended up doing – because more and more water was coming our way, it was impossible to find a route out of the city – we ended up parking in the middle of a roundabout. So it was just a small roundabout in the city, but you know how sometimes on a roundabout you get flowers on a flowerbed, and it's kind of a little hill. So we just kind of vroomed on top of there. And we were like, OK, here we're high and dry and safe and we can just wait for the water level to go down again. So I got out of the car, had a look around, as you can see in the photo. Unfortunately, we never made it back to the restaurant to celebrate my birthday that evening. I spent my birthday in a car on top of a flowerbed on top of a roundabout. But it was a memorable experience, so there you go.

Listen to Jo talking about a memorable weather experience she had on holiday.

Now it's your turn

Have you ever had to change your plans because of the weather? Tell us about it!

Remember that communicating with others is a great way to improve your English, so be sure to reply to comments you find interesting.

Record a comment and share it below.

Go to SpeakPipe voice recorder

* Recordings are kept on a SpeakPipe server. Please don't include any music in your recording.

Next step

It was not a dramatic weather experience but it was strange. This summer I spent my holidays in London and for three or four days it was very hot. So, one of these days, we decided to go to Brighton for a swim in the sea. But amazingly when we arrived in Brighton we found that the weather was completely different from London: it was cloudy, cold and windy and we didn’t have the right clothes. So we saw the sea and beach very fast, we got a quick beer and went back to warm London

https://www.speakpipe.com/voice-recorder/msg/86pd4mynw26j3eoo

This summer we spent some time in Bukovel with my husband. Bukovel is a well-known mountain resort in Ukraine. You probably know that weather in mountains may be unpredictable. We left the hotel in the afternoon when there was not a cloud in the sky and decided to have a ride on a boat on a local lake with a romantik name of Lake of Youth. When we got there the sky began to be dark but we didn't change our plan. Long story short. When we were right in the middle of the lake, heavy rain and thunderstorm began. It was so scary because it's very dangerous to stay in water during such weather conditions. Happily, we successfully got to the lakeshore without any damage. You should have seen how fast we were moving, we were just flying over the water.

P.S.: Here is the photo made during that ride

My family and i go to two - day drip to inn lay which is located in shan state. When we got there, it is sunny but not hot. We made plan to ride boat to have fun . We had come together with our little two puppies . It’d got suddenly darking in the sky and raining a lot at that time we were in the middle of the river. We all were soaked. When we reached at the side of river, the rain stopped and we all were looking funny like a soaking rat.

Hi Treasure,

It sounds as if you got soaked to the skin! I love the description you use - I think the usual idiom is 'to look like a drowned rat', but a soaking rat works too :-)

Best wishes,

Jo (LearnEnglish team)

Hi everyone,

Once, I traveled to Tianjin, China. It was very hot in the morning. But the difference is huge in the afternoon. The weather is very cold. I had to immediately take a taxi back to the hotel to change. I put on all my clothes and scarves.

https://www.speakpipe.com/voice-recorder/msg/jwdfntd2zncn94sv

Hi Uta,
Thanks for your voice message. It must have been a really stressful time when your house flooded. Unfortunately, as you say, we are experiencing more and more of this kind of extreme weather nowadays. I guess we will have to adapt and be prepared for it.
I'm glad to hear you had good weather for your holidays though!

Best wishes,
Jo (LearnEnglish team)

I remembered that afternoon after I got back from school. I played with my friends in the jackfruit tree in my friend's backyard. The sky was like it was splitting in two; the east side was dark with cumulonimbus clouds, and the west side was still bright with sunshine. We stared at the west side, where an open field of paddy rice spanned miles away. Suddenly, lightning struck in those paddy rice fields, with a very loud thunder and bright flash. We were all shocked and panicked to see what happened not far from where we were sitting. We then ran to our own houses. Fortunately, it did not happen close enough, if it had, I might not be able to tell about it now.

Hi ridhoain,
That's a great description of the extreme weather you experienced. I can really picture how the sky looked as if it was split in two. It must have felt really scary, but I'm glad you were safe in the end.

Best wishes,
Jo (LearnEnglish team)

my best memories with a great weather when I was in the turkya, Istanbul it has a nice weather inspite of the daily (and hourly infact) changes in the weather from sunny to rainy suddenly, so you have to wear a suitable clothes and wearing a jacket all the time, just in case

I do not remember to change my plans because of the weather ,but when I was a student , I lived in a place where the strong wind have accurred at times. It was not happening everywhere but particulary in that place. And remember that several times I experienced that . It was tough to go through that fierce wind until reaching the bus station: ) though not that much to change my plan.

In Egypt we don't have a harsh weather in general,but last year was a rough weather, thunder and heavy rains flooded most of our town and government cancelled schools and everyone who had plans cancelled them

Once, I had to cancel my plans because of a flood in my neighbourhood. When I was a kid, I was planning a Halloween party for my classmates. But the river had been raising until it finally reached my home and I had to move to a relative's place and we couldn't celebrate Halloween that year. Luckily, my home hasn't suffered any more floods in the last few years!

Hi, I've never had a very extreme weather experience because here in Latvia the weather usually is calm. About 5 years ago we had flood in August after heavy rain. It isn't typically in our region. When I had to go to work my feet was wet and umbrella didn't help at all to keep me dry.

Some years ago I was in my holiday trip in the lavender zone in south of France. I was near the Senaque abbey. the goal was to do some photo from lavender fields with the abbey in the background but the weather had different plan for us. Suddenly haevy grey clouds covered the sky and strong wind began to blow. It started to rain and hail, it was like the sky wanted to fall on us. Luckily we found shelter in our car but we were unable to reach the abbey that day.

i have experienced to cancel my plan because of the bad weather. but as it not a big problem for me, so i forgot it :(

In the summer of 2021, I and my friend decided to climb up the highest mountain in Ukraine - Hoverla, which is part of the Carpathian mountains.
Before we got on the train to the nearest village at the foothills of Hoverla, we had carefully thought about the necessary things that we would need in the mountains. Because it was summer, we did not take many warm clothes.
So, we came to the foot of Hoverla and started our hike. The ascent to the mountain was challenging in places, we had to rest often. But all the difficulties of the ascent were compensated by the spectacular scenery of the Ukrainian Carpathians. Somewhere in the middle of the climb, the weather suddenly deteriorated: a strong wind arose, the sky was suddenly covered with black clouds, and a light rain began, which turned into a downpour in half an hour. We were barely able to complete our journey. At the summit we were delighted with our achievement, there was no rain, but unfortunately, there was a heavy fog and we did not see the gorgeous landscape that we had hoped to see. But the worst happened during the descent from the mountain. The weather was merciless to us, we slipped down the hill, fell several times, and tore our pants and sneakers. Moreover, we were very cold, because the temperature in the mountains was about 15 degrees lower.
Despite all the problems mentioned, we had no other choice but to continue descending. Eventually, we finished. We were exhausted, but very proud of ourselves.

Hello Halyna,

This reminded me of a mountain in the Pyrenees called the Puig Carlit. Several years ago, I climbed it with my family and a friend of ours. It was a long, difficult hike and despite the fact that it was the hottest part of the summer, there was still snow near the top. We didn't get cold that day, but if the weather had turned -- which was something very easy to imagine while up there, as it was quite cold -- it would have been very bad.

Just last weekend I heard that two experienced hikers died up there after being surprised by a snow storm. Poor people! I imagine visibility was near zero and so they couldn't find their way to shelter.

Glad you made it down safely and that it was a good experience!

All the best,
Kirk
LearnEnglish team

Once I went to the northern part of the country (Pakistan). wow, it was amazing, I am unable to forget that because small pieces of white flakes were falling down from the sky. It was snowing. The weather was chilly and windy. There was a white cover of snow everywhere because it had been snowed for almost 2 days. I am from the northwest side of Pakistan where the weather is warm in fact hotter than in other parts of the country. So, that was a memorable day of my life when I saw snow falling down for the first time. It was a really memorable and exhilarating experience.

I haven't really experienced those kind of things. Actually, of course, we all have, some day, put off or cancel a program because of bad weather but it's never been such a big deal for me . For instance, yesterday when I was going back from work, it was raining a lot. I was with my coworker and friend. We waited, at the bus stop, after we get down for more than two hours, for the rain to stop. There was too much water streaming along the streets. Even after the rain stopped, we could not walk home. I ended up picked up home by my father and my friend grabbed a taxi.

I remember one day, my flight to the city was canceled due to a bad raining in my department, I was a little bit sad at the beginning because I thought I needed to buy another ticket to fly, but the flight attendant said that I could fly with my same ticket. The other day I flew to my destination. I was so lucky to travel!

I would like to travel a lot, and probably I could tell you about memorable weather, but you could think my life is boring, because I have no any experience of strange weather. I live in beautiful country with mild climate. And of course, I like southern Europe with spectacular seashore, tender sea and rocky mountains.

My English speaking continues bad ... https://www.speakpipe.com/voice-recorder/msg/9h6lnw3id311iwyc

Hi marcelobj,

Three flights cancelled ... that's pretty bad luck! I think anybody would find that hard to deal with. I hope that it has not put you off travelling in Europe.

I don't think your speaking is bad ... :D

Jonathan

LearnEnglish team

https://www.speakpipe.com/voice-recorder/msg/metncka6owfuajqt

Hi Iyanag77,

I don't have kids but I can imagine that it was a very difficult situation to handle! Did you manage to ski in the end?

Jonathan

LearnEnglish team

https://www.speakpipe.com/voice-recorder/msg/xp4pf9fan9jnwdfg

Hi Olegas_1234,

That is one of my nightmares, actually. Although I can drive, I don't know much about car maintenance or even how to change a tyre, so if my car got stuck in the mud I wouldn't know what to do. Did you ever consider stopping and continuing the journey later, after the ground had firmed up a bit?

Jonathan

LearnEnglish team

I remembered a time when I was walking down the road in London City. It was a fine day and I was having a good time strolling around. Suddenly there was a gush of cool breeze touching my face, so welcoming and comforting. Not two seconds later, the nice breeze turned into a fierceful wind. I was pushed to my left n while i was trying to keep my balance, I felt someone holding me. I looked at my right n i saw a small old lady, her hands tightly held to my arm; it was either she was holding me for her dear life, or it was me who needed to be saved. We fought our way into a shop and after having a deep breath we looked at each other laughed our hearts out.