Page 85 - Prime Time 1-5 Leaflet

Weather idioms
7 a) Match the idioms (1-5) with their
meanings (A-E). Are there similar ones
in your language?
b) Use the idioms to complete the gaps.
1 Take your big umbrella with you. It is ...............
............................................................ outside!
2 Go help Bill. He’s ............................................. !
3 Jane always leaves when there’s a problem,
she’s such a .................................................... .
4 I found a new job that I like better after losing
my old one. You see, ...................................... !
5 Jill ............................... today. She’s got a cold.
Speaking & Writing
8 Tell your partner four things you have
learnt from the text.
9 Imagine you have experienced
one of the weird phenomena in the texts.
In three minutes, write about your
experience and feelings. Tell the class. Start
like this: I’m in the region of Yoro, Honduras. It
has been raining since morning. Right now it’s ...
Think!
raining cats and dogs
every cloud has a silver lining
fair-weather friend
in a fog
is under the weather
1
2
3
4
5
A however bad the situation is, something
positive always comes from it
B confused, puzzled
C someone who is only around when things are good
D pouring with rain
E feels a bit ill
2
B
3
e 1
15
Fire from the sky
We’re all used to hearing about tornados, but imagine if a tornado was a whirling fire storm
instead of a wind storm. A fire tornado or a ‘fire devil’ can happen when high temperatures from
a wildfire mix with strong winds. They are usually about 300-450 metres high, but they can
sometimes reach 1.6 km in height! A fire tornado made world news in 2010 in Brazil when
astonished motorists watched one spin and burn its way through fields by a highway. In 1923,
the Great Kanto Earthquake in Japan ignited the largest fire tornado in history, killing
38,000 people in 15 minutes. Luckily, fire tornados are very rare.
A watery tale
Have you ever heard the saying, ‘it’s raining cats and dogs’?
Well, what about frogs, fish, jellyfish or even snakes? Believe it or
not, there have been many stories throughout history of it raining
animals. One explanation is that strong winds or a tornado could
pick them up and drop them far away. The rain of fish has been
happening every summer in the region of Yoro, Honduras, for over a
century. Witnesses say that there is usually a violent storm, then
afterwards there are hundreds of living fish on the
ground which people take home, cook and eat! Many
local people believe that this is a miracle, but some scientists
disagree; they believe that the fish are fromunderground rivers and that the stormssomehow bring them up above
ground.
weather forecast, wrap up warm, never-ending,
lightning storm, weather phenomena, constantly,
crash into, violent, silver lining, nitrogen oxide,
restore, ozone layer, occur, whirling, temperature,
wildfire, make world news, astonished, spin, ignite,
rare, region, witness, violent storm, miracle,
underground river, above ground
Check these words
Idioms
Learning idioms improves your ability to read in
English and understand colloquial conversation.
Compare idioms in the English language to idioms in
your language. This will help you remember them.
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