Tormentas y tornados ponen en alerta a millones
B2 Spanish listening practice · Mexican Spanish · Curated for upper-intermediate learners
What does “nube embudo” mean in Spanish?
A nube embudo (“funnel cloud,” literally “funnel cloud”) is the rotating cone of condensed air that dips down from a storm. The precise distinction newscasts make: it stays a nube embudo while it hangs in the air, and becomes a tornado only the moment it touches the ground. The key word is embudo — a funnel, the kitchen cone you pour liquids through, here describing the cloud’s shape.
Storm vocabulary from the same report: torbellino (whirlwind / vortex), granizo (hail), ráfagas de viento (gusts), and arrancar de raíz (to uproot, “to tear out by the root”). The damage is to los damnificados — the victims or those affected by a disaster, a standard term in Spanish disaster coverage worth knowing alongside escombros, “rubble / debris.”