2015-11-09 Run for cover – Abigail is coming! 赶快躲 – 阿比盖尔号暴风雨即将来临!

你会给一场强大暴风雨起个什么名字？想不出来？没关系。《随身英语》告诉你英国人都喜欢给坏天气起哪些名字。

课文内容

词汇: Weather 天气

Go home and shut all the windows because Abigail is coming! In this case, Abigail is not a very angry lady, but the name of a storm chosen by the public in an initiative by the UK weather service, the Met Office, and its Irish counterpart Met Eireann.

In the last few months they have compiled a list of names suggested by ordinary people. In alphabetical order, Barney is next, followed by Clodagh. You might find Katie down the line, and also Nigel.

The idea of giving peoples’ names to storms is to make people more aware that bad weather is on its way – and it is more understandable than giving them the latitude and longitude. Following a convention by the US, no storms will be given names beginning with the less common letters: Q, U, X, Y and Z.

The National Hurricane Center in Miami has officially been naming the Atlantic’s tropical cyclones since 1953 – men’s names were included in the 1970s. But the list is maintained and updated by the World Meteorological Organization, a UN agency based in Geneva.

Names of storms considered too catastrophic are ‘retired’ and replaced. No more Katrina – the name of the devastating hurricane that killed nearly 2,000 in the US in 2005. Cyclones are upgraded to hurricanes if they reach 119km/h.

But what happens when there are too many storms in the world in a particular year? Julian Heming, tropical predictions scientist at the Met Office in the UK, explains: “If the remainder of the season is very active, it’s not out of the question we’ll have to… start using letters from the Greek alphabet.”

词汇表

storm  暴风雨
weather service  天气服务机构（此处指英国气象中心）
to compile  编辑，编纂
alphabetical order  按照英文字母表顺序
latitude  纬度
longitude  经度
convention  常规，习惯，规定
hurricane  飓风
tropical  热带的
cyclone  龙卷风，气旋
meteorological  气象的，气象学的
catastrophic  毁灭性的
upgraded  被提高、升级
season  季节

测验与练习

1. 阅读课文并回答问题。

1. Who is Abigail?
2. Why are storms given names?
3. True or False? The name Katie was taken off the list after a hurricane with this name caused great devastation.
4. Why won’t we see a hurricane called Quentin?
5. What happens if they run out of names any particular year?

2. 请你在不参考课文的情况下完成下列练习。从每个表格中选择一个意思合适的单词填入句子的空格处。

1. Have you heard the news? The cyclone is stronger now and it has turned into _________.

a storm      a season      latitude and longitude      a hurricane

2. A UN agency in Geneva _________ the list of names of cyclones in the world.

upgrades      retires      updates      replaces

3. Barney and Nigel are names of storms suggested _________ people in the UK.

for      at      of      by

4. Don’t worry. You don’t have to rush home. This is just _________ storm, not a cyclone!

a catastrophic      a devastating      an ordinary      an Abigail

5. Iceland experiences long summer nights due to its northern _________.

hurricane      latitude      longitude      meteorology

答案

1. 阅读课文并回答问题。

1. Who is Abigail?
Abigail is not a person – it’s the first name chosen by the public in a list of names for storms.

2. Why are storms given names?
Storms are given names to make people more aware that bad weather is on its way – names are easier to remember than geographical positions.

3. True or False? The name Katie was taken off the list after a hurricane with this name caused great devastation.
False. The name taken off the list – or ‘retired’ – was Katrina.

4. Why won’t we see a hurricane called Quentin?
No storms are given names starting with Q, U, X, Y and Z, following a convention in the US.

5. What happens if they run out of names in any particular year?
The meteorologists might use names starting with letters of the Greek alphabet.

2. 请你在不参考课文的情况下完成下列练习。从每个表格中选择一个意思合适的单词填入句子的空格处。

1. Have you heard the news? The cyclone is stronger now and it has turned into a hurricane.

2. A UN agency in Geneva updates the list of names of cyclones in the world.

3. Barney and Nigel are names of storms suggested by people in the UK.

4. Don’t worry. You don’t have to rush home. This is just an ordinary storm, not a cyclone!

5. Iceland experiences long summer nights due to its northern latitude.