VOA慢速英语--暴风雪“雪斯拉”以及大熊猫“天天”_

AS IT IS 2016-01-26 'Snowzilla' and Tian Tian the Giant Panda 暴风雪“雪斯拉”以及大熊猫“天天”_

This is What's Trending Today....

Many cities in the East Coast of the United States continue to dig out after record-breaking amounts of snow fell over the weekend. The community of Glengary in the state of West Virginia had the most snowfall, with 100 centimeters recorded.

The storm’s “official” name was Winter Storm Jonas. The Weather Channel began naming large winter storms three years ago, just as the National Weather Service has done with tropical storms and hurricanes for many years.

But some cities decided¹ on different names for the weekend’s snowstorm. In Washington, D.C., residents voted to name the storm “Snowzilla,” a play on the famous monster, Godzilla.

The Washington Post created a poll for residents to vote on their favorite storm name. Snowzilla beat out “Make Winter Great Again.” That name is a play on the presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign expression, “Make America Great Again.”

After the re-naming of the storm, the hashtags #snowzilla and #snowzilla2016 trended on Twitter and Facebook.

One Twitter user posted a photo of a street sign that read “Lizzard Warning” instead of "Blizzard² Warning." The missing “B” at the beginning of the word made it similar to the word “lizard³,” with one "z." And, Godzilla himself is similar to a giant lizard.

Some people had fun with the mistake, and added images of Godzilla into the photo:

Twitter user NumbersMuncher posted a photo of a car that appears to be in the giant mouth of a Godzilla-like monster. Of course, the mouth was created from snow:

Godzilla was not even the storm’s most famous creature. That honor goes to Tian Tian, a giant panda at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. A video of Tian Tian playing in the snow on Saturday has received over 55 million views on Facebook.

Words in This Story

dig - v. to move away soil, sand, snow, etc., often in order to create a hole

tropical storm - n. a powerful storm that begins in the tropics and that has winds which are not as strong as those of a hurricane

hurricane - n. an extremely large, powerful, and destructive storm with very strong winds that occurs especially in the western part of the Atlantic Ocean

monster - n. a strange or horrible imaginary creature?

blizzard - n. a severe snowstorm that goes on for a long time

lizard - n. a type of reptile⁴ that has four legs and a long body and tail?

creature - n. an animal of any type

1 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

2 blizzard   

n.暴风雪

参考例句：

• The blizzard struck while we were still on the mountain.我们还在山上的时候暴风雪就袭来了。
• You'll have to stay here until the blizzard blows itself off.你得等暴风雪停了再走。

3 lizard   

n.蜥蜴，壁虎

参考例句：

• A chameleon is a kind of lizard.变色龙是一种蜥蜴。
• The lizard darted out its tongue at the insect.蜥蜴伸出舌头去吃小昆虫。

4 reptile   

n.爬行动物；两栖动物

参考例句：

• The frog is not a true reptile.青蛙并非真正的爬行动物。
• So you should not be surprised to see someone keep a reptile as a pet.所以，你不必惊奇有人养了一只爬行动物作为宠物。