Describing cold weather in English

To say it's cold, besides "cold", English has many other words such as "frosty", "icy" or "It's biting cold".

Mr. Quang Nguyen, an English pronunciation training expert, shares some vocabulary to talk about rainy, cold weather:

When the weather is around 10 degrees, we Vietnamese often call it "cold" or "chilly", but in America, I see people often just say "cool". If it's colder than "cold", we can say: "It's freezing" or "it's frigid". When it's "biting cold", the English expression is: "It's biting cold".

If the temperature drops below 0 degrees Celsius and there is a lot of snow, we say: "a snowy day". When water vapor in the air sticks to surfaces and forms "ice", the British use "frost". Its adjective "frosty" also means very cold.

When it's cold, a few drops of water from the roof or tree trunk freeze to form "icicles" (like stalactites in a cave, but made of ice), called "icicles". If "icy cold" then in English there is an expression "icy", for example: "the water is icy" - the water is always cold as ice.

There are many ways to describe cold rain. For example, rain that falls to the ground and then freezes is called "freezing rain".

The second type is "hail", many of you probably think of "hail". Actually, "hail" often appears in hot air areas, with large ice particles and thunderstorms. "Sleet" is when rain/ice drops fall through a hot air area, turn into water, then fall down into cold air, the water drops freeze, that is hail. Simply put, "sleet" is "hail" when the temperature is very low; and "hail" is hail when there is a thunderstorm, in a warm temperature.

Quang Nguyen (Moon ESL)

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