Falling, wide, back closing diphthong + /ə/.

In this phonemic combination in which the diphthong /aʊ/ is followed by /ə/, as in e.g. power, the tongue glides from just above a centralised open position towards a centralised back position just above half close, but before reaching the half close height, the tongue then glides to a central position just below half open. The lips change from neutrally open to weakly rounded and back to neutral at the end of the glide (/aʊə/). The movement of the tongue is therefore extensive. There is a tendency in rapid General and Refined RP to omit the second element /ʊ/, especially when the /ə/ is not felt as a separable morpheme (smoothing) thereby reducing the glide usually to just two elements, the diphthong /aə/, or to one long monophthong /aː/ or /ɑː/ particularly in Refined RP. Thus, shower may sound the same as shire and Sah.