This segment from CNN explains is devoted to cyclones. The level of the activity is suitable for intermediate students, but as the full transcript of the video clip is provided below, Básico 2 students should be able to complete most of the blanks in the activity.
Self-study activity:
Watch the CNN video and complete the blanks in the transcript with the missing words.
A tropical cyclone is an area of low pressure that forms in the tropical regions of the world. Cyclones are actually very important, even though, of course, they can be (1) ... . They help essentially balance out the (2) ... across the globe. They are an equalizer, so they take the heat energy from the tropics and they translate that where we need it into the colder climates.
The generic term for it is a tropical cyclone. That can refer to any cyclone that has a closed center of circulation, anywhere in the world, like in the Atlantic, when they get strong enough, to a certain wind (3) ... , we call them hurricanes. But if you`re in the western Pacific, a hurricane is called a typhoon. There's no difference between a hurricane and a typhoon except in the name. They're both tropical cyclones.
The naming system is based on the World Meteorological Organization. There's a list of names. Depending on the basin, in the Atlantic Basin we recycle the names every six years. If a storm become particularly intense or is (4) ... for a coastline, or has a lot of casualties associated with it, we retire the name and don't use it again, for example, Hurricane Katrina, that name will never be used again.
Once a tropical storm becomes a hurricane, we use what we call the Saffi-Simpson scale. Saffi-Simpson scale categorizes the hurricane from category one, which is the (5) ... to a category five. A category one minimal hurricane has to have winds in its center of (6) ... miles an hour.
As the storm continues to gather (7) ... and becomes more intense, if it reaches 96 miles an hour, that's a category two. A category 3 has winds of (8) ... miles an hour. If it continues to intensify, that is a deadly category four storm. And then the strongest of hurricanes, category five. That is pretty devastating stuff.
Definitely heed the (9) ... and get yourself a preparedness kit. Know what you're going to do in the event of a cyclone. Are you going to evacuate, when do you evacuate, and again, heed those warnings.
Key:
1 deadly 2 temperature 3 speed 4 devastating 5 weakest 6 seventy-four 7 strength 8 one hundred and eleven 9 warnings
