Weather & Seasons — Part 4

What you'll learn: the formal, written-register phrases and connectors used to discuss weather in professional emails, reports, and opinion essays — the register CELPIP Writing Task 1 (formal email) and Task 2 (survey response) specifically reward.

Why casual weather talk doesn't fit formal writing

"It's freezing out" works perfectly in conversation, but Writing Task 1 often asks you to explain a weather-related disruption — a delayed shipment, a cancelled meeting, a postponed event — to a colleague, landlord, or client. That context calls for formal cause-and-effect phrasing rather than casual description. Raters scoring the Content/Coherence and Vocabulary criteria specifically look for register control: can you shift from describing weather casually to explaining its consequences formally?

Structure: cause phrase + connector + consequence

Most formal weather writing follows a simple structure: a formal cause phrase ("due to adverse weather conditions") followed by a connector ("as a result," "consequently") introducing the consequence. Mastering both halves lets you build compact, professional sentences instead of long, awkward explanations.

Word bank: formal weather phrases

Common connectors for this register: consequently, as a result, in light of this, meanwhile, furthermore.

Worked example — Writing Task 1 (formal email)

"I am writing to inform you that our scheduled site visit will need to be postponed due to adverse weather conditions forecast for Thursday. In light of the forecast, which predicts heavy snowfall across the region, our team believes it would be unsafe to travel. Given the unpredictable climate this winter, we recommend building a buffer of at least two extra days into our project timeline to account for further weather-related disruptions. Consequently, I propose we reschedule the visit for the following Monday. Please let me know if this revised date works with your availability."

Common mistakes

• "Because of the weather" used repeatedly instead of varying with due to adverse weather conditions — fine once, but repetition costs Vocabulary marks; alternate phrasing across a response.
• "Weather problems" instead of weather-related disruptions — the fixed formal collocation sounds far more professional than a generic noun pair.
• Dropping connectors entirely and stringing formal phrases together with "and" — formal writing needs explicit connectors like as a result or consequently to signal logic clearly.
• "With the season changing" instead of with the change of season approaching — the fuller collocation is the natural formal phrasing; the shortened version reads as informal.

Recap

Formal weather phrasing pairs a cause expression with a logical connector to explain consequences clearly and professionally. Practice by writing two formal sentences about a weather-related schedule change at your own workplace or school, using one phrase and one connector from this lesson in each.