Unit 16: What's the weather like?
Using 'may', 'might' and 'could'
Select a unit
- 1 Nice to meet you!
- 2 What to wear
- 3 Like this, like that
- 4 The daily grind
- 5 Christmas every day
- 6 Great achievers
- 7 The Titanic
- 8 Travel
- 9 The big wedding
- 10 Sunny's job hunt
- 11 The bucket list
- 12 Moving and migration
- 13 Welcome to BBC Broadcasting House
- 14 New Year, New Project
- 15 From Handel to Hendrix
- 16 What's the weather like?
- 17 The Digital Revolution
- 18 A detective story
- 19 A place to live
- 20 The Cult of Celebrity
- 21 Welcome to your new job
- 22 Beyond the planets
- 23 Great expectations!
- 24 Eco-tourism
- 25 Moving house
- 26 It must be love
- 27 Job hunting success... and failure
- 28 Speeding into the future
- 29 Lost arts
- 30 Tales of survival
Session 1
What's the weather like where you live? In this session we take a look at weather forecasting and learn some useful vocabulary for talking about the weather.
Activity 2
A weather forecast
A story of sunshine and showers
Do you live in a place where the weather doesn't change much? Maybe the weather where you are is different every day. Millions of people around the world watch TV weather forecasts so they can plan what to do based on what the weather will be like.
We're going to watch a real BBC weather forecast to see what's going to happen in the week ahead. And we're going to make some plans according to the forecast!
While you watch, listen out for weather vocabulary and try to catch what the weather will be like...
...on Sunday morning
...on Sunday afternoon in the South
Watch the video and complete the activity

Paragraph 1
So this is what it looks like this weekend, and it's a story of sunshine and showers. So the kind of weather that changes from hour to hour, so if you are popping out for any lengthy period of time, make sure you have your brolly or the waterproofs, because there will be one or two downpours around across the country.
Paragraph 2
Actually, some of these showers - you can see how they're dotted across Scotland, northern England, the Midlands too - some of these showers will be heavy. One particular one here, but of course this is just a snapshot at four o'clock in the afternoon, and with the clock, these showers will be moving around as well. But they won't be moving very quickly, because the winds are very light on Saturday, so if you are going to be stuck underneath the shower you might be stuck underneath it for quite some time before it moves away and affects the neighbourhoods or the towns further on.
Paragraph 3
Temperatures a little on the fresh side, for sure, around 12 or 13 for most of us, really, particularly in the showers. If you get a bit of sunshine, it may get up to the mid or high teens in the south of the country.
Paragraph 4
This is Saturday night into the early hours of Sunday. The winds will die down, the showers will clear away, and it is potentially going to be quite a foggy morning. So first thing on Sunday, if you are travelling, there could be some quite tricky conditions, particularly in the countryside with fog.
Paragraph 5
And then through Sunday itself this area of low pressure from Iberia, across the Bay of Biscay and into France, will upset the weather somewhat, at least a little bit later on into Sunday.
Paragraph 6
So after a foggy start, lots of bright weather around for Sunday afternoon for most of us. But notice that the weather's going downhill across the Channel Islands, the south coast, and eventually the south east of England.
Paragraph 7
So we could be talking about some quite heavy rain pushing in through the middle part of the afternoon across the south of the UK.
What shall we do?
3 Questions
Based on the forecast you just watched, choose the best activity for each time and place. Have another look at the video or read the transcript if you need help.
Help
Activity
Based on the forecast you just watched, choose the best activity for each time and place. Have another look at the video or read the transcript if you need help.
Hint
Look at paragraph 1 of the transcriptQuestion 1 of 3
Help
Activity
Based on the forecast you just watched, choose the best activity for each time and place. Have another look at the video or read the transcript if you need help.
Hint
Look at paragraph 4 in the transcriptQuestion 2 of 3
Help
Activity
Based on the forecast you just watched, choose the best activity for each time and place. Have another look at the video or read the transcript if you need help.
Hint
Look at paragraphs 6 and 7 in the transcriptQuestion 3 of 3
Excellent! Great job! Bad luck! You scored:
Next
How did you get on? Are you getting a better understanding about predicting the weather and the words to use? Don't worry if you haven't yet - because in 6 Minute Vocabulary, Catherine and Rob look at some verbs and nouns we use to talk about the weather. That's next.