to freeze (one’s) buns off

Welcome to English as a Second Language Podcast number 98: Winter Weather.

This is English as a Second Language Podcast episode 98. I’m your host, Dr. Jeff McQuillan, from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.

This podcast, we’re going to talk about weather in the wintertime. Let’s get started!

I grew up in Minnesota, where the summers are hot and humid and winters are bitterly cold. Living in Los Angeles now, it's sometimes hard to describe to people how winter weather can be in chillier climates. In L.A. most of the year, the weather is sunny, clear, and warm. In one of my favorite movies, LA Story, the weathercaster pre-recorded his weather forecasts because the weather was the same every day!

Well, that's an exaggeration, because even in L.A., it can sometimes be quite cool in the winter and some areas around the beaches can have dense fog and occasionally drizzling. But that's nothing compared to Minnesota. In winter, they get snow flurries and blizzards, when as much as 3 feet of snow can fall. As a kid, I would build snowmen