Umbrellas are useful when it rains!

Britain is famous around the world for its rainy weather, but many parts of the country this June are experiencing much more rain than they have ever seen before.

Torrential downpour shave caused rivers to burst their banks, roads have been closed and many people have been evacuated from their homes because of the floods.

The worst hit area seems to be the north of England. There have even beenfatalitiesas people got stuck in the rain or were washed awayby the floodwaters.

Flood warnings have beenissuedin many parts of the UK and it is said that over a month's worth of rain has fallen in just the last couple of days.

The rain has also caused chaos at some of Britain's famous June events. The Glastonbury festival is a four-day-long outdoor music festival and while it is traditionally quite rainy and muddy there, this year was particularly bad.

Everyone was wearing wellies and there have been many pictures in the newspapers of people covered from head to toe in mud. It rained throughout the festival and with more than 170,000 revellers walking around and camping on the grounds, it didn't take long for the site to turn intoa mud bath.

June also sees the start of the Wimbledon tennis tournament. The start of play on the first day was delayed by half an hour or so because of the rain and had to be halted again mid-afternoon for a couple of hours. There are no floods in the London region though, just frequent showers.

So while the British would like to haveglorious sunshineduring the summer months, the rain continues to fall in most areas. People in Britain are used to having unpredictable weather – cold rainy summer days and warmer winter months. However this amount of rain and devastation is even more unexpected.

People can only hope that the rain will stop soon and the sun will come out, so they can eventually start to enjoy a nicer summer.

GLOSSARY 词汇表 (收听发音, 请单击英语单词)
 

torrential downpours 暴雨；倾盆大雨	to burst their banks 决堤
evacuated 疏散	floods 洪水
worst hit 首打击最严重的	fatalities 死亡(事故)
washed away 被冲走	issued 发布
a month's worth 够用(值)一个月的	chaos 混乱
muddy 泥泞的	wellies 惠灵顿长靴
revellers 喜欢凑热闹的人	a mud bath 泥澡
delayed 被拖延	halted 停顿；停止
frequent showers 经常性的阵雨 unpredictable 难预测的	glorious sunshine 灿烂的阳光 devastation 毁灭性的破坏

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