Describing cold weather in English

Besides "cold," English has many other words to describe cold weather, such as "frosty," "icy," or "It's biting cold."

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

With temperatures around 10 degrees Celsius, Vietnamese people usually call it "cold" or "chilly," but in America, I've noticed people often just say "cool." If it's colder than "cold," you can say: "It's freezing" or "it's frigid." And if it's so cold it feels like it's "biting cold," the English expression is: "It's biting cold."

If the temperature drops below 0 degrees Celsius and it snows heavily, we say: "a snowy day". When water vapor in the air condenses on surfaces to form "frost", the British use the word "frost". Its adjective form, "frosty", also means very cold.

In cold weather, a few drops of water from a roof or tree trunk freeze, forming "icicles" (similar to stalactites in a cave, but made of ice). If something is "cold as ice," the English equivalent is "icy," for example, "the water is icy."

Rain when temperatures drop can be described in many ways. For example, rain that falls to the ground and then freezes is called "freezing rain".

The second type is "hail," which many of you probably think of as "hail." Actually, "hail" usually occurs in areas with warm air, large hailstones, and thunderstorms. "Sleet" is when raindrops/ice fall through a warm air mass, melt into water, then fall into cold air, and the water droplets freeze, resulting in hail. Simply put, "sleet" is hail when the temperature is very low; while "hail" is hail during a thunderstorm, in a warmer location.

Quang Nguyen (Moon ESL)

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