How to talk about the weather in Spanish
Alicia Fernández
• Feb 27, 2024
• 8 minutes
Updated Mar 18, 2024
In this volume, we discuss the alphabet, definite and indefinite articles, and verbs ser and estar, among other topics.
¿Qué tiempo hace? (What’s the weather like?) ¿Hace frío donde vives? (Is it cold where you live?) Do you know how to answer these questions? Do you know how to talk about the weather in Spanish? If not, after you read today’s article you will! In this article you will learn everything you need to know to talk about the weather: common verbs, most used verb tenses, vocabulary, and common expressions. At the end, you will have a chance to practice what you learned.
Let’s get started!
In Spanish, we mainly use three verbs to talk about the weather: hacer, estar, haber. The most common one is the verb hacer. We always conjugate these verbs in the third person singular of the present indicative tense to talk about the weather in the current moment. This would be the equivalent of It is/It’s in English. Here are the most common expressions to talk about the weather with the verb hacer:
¿Qué tiempo hace hoy? What's the weather like today?
Hace 37 grados hoy. (It is 37 degrees today.)
Hace buen tiempo. (The weather's nice.)
Hace calor. (It’s hot.)
Hace fresco. (It’s chilly.)
Hace frío. (It's cold.)
Hace mal tiempo. (The weather is bad.)
Hace mucha humedad. (It is very humid.)
Hace sol. (It’s sunny.)
Hace viento. (It's windy.)
¡Ojo! If you want to make these sentences negative, just add no before hace, just like you would do with any other verb: Hoy no hace calor. (It is not hot today.) You can also add mucho/mucha to some of these expressions: Hace mucho frío. (It’s very cold.) Hace mucho sol. (It’s very sunny.)
How would you say It’s raining? With verbs we use the present progressive, not the verb hacer. The verb hacer as you have seen previously, is only used with nouns (calor, frío, sol, viento...).
Let’s take a look at some weather expressions with the present progressive. Remember, the present progressive is formed using the present tense of the verb estar (in this case, in the third person singular) and the present participle of a verb (ending in -ando or -iendo for regular verbs):
Está diluviando. (It’s pouring.)
Está granizando. (It’s hailing.)
Está lloviendo. (It’s raining.)
Está lloviznando. (It's drizzling)
Está nevando. (It’s snowing.)
¡Ojo! We can also use the verb estar + past participle used as an adjective: Está nublado. (It’s cloudy.) Está soleado. (It’s sunny.) Está despejado. (It’s clear.) Está helado. (It’s freezing.)
Finally, we also use the verb haber (there is) to talk about certain weather conditions:
Hay un arcoiris.
(There is a rainbow.)
Ayer hubo una gran tormenta.
(Yesterday there was a big storm.)
Hay mucha niebla esta mañana.
(It's very foggy this morning.)
Durante 2023, hubo unos 1.197 tornados en Estados Unidos.
(During 2023, there were about 1,197 tornadoes in the United States.)
We can also talk about the weather using other verb tenses:
¿Lloverá para el cumpleaños de Francisco? (Will it rain for Francisco's birthday?)
Ha estado nevando toda la mañana. (It has been snowing all morning.)
Ayer hizo mucho sol. (Yesterday it was very sunny.)
Mañana va a hacer buen tiempo. (Tomorrow it's going to be nice.)
Ojalá que no llueva este fin de semana. (I hope it doesn’t rain this weekend.)
Hacía mucho viento en la playa. (It was very windy at the beach.)
¡Ojo! Remember we always use the third person singular to talk about the weather, just like in English.
Here are additional terms related to the weather:
¡Ojo! Don’t confuse clima and tiempo. Although they are similar and sometimes used interchangeably, the term tiempo refers to short-term changes or current weather conditions: Hoy hace sol, Está lloviendo. However, clima is used to talk about the weather in a more general way, over a longer period of time in a specific region: Hace mucho sol en el sur de España. Llueve mucho en Buenaventura, Colombia. Hace mucho viento en Tarifa.
Let’s take a look at more examples:
No me gusta conducir cuando hay niebla.
(I don't like driving when it’s foggy.)
Hace mucha humedad en Florida.
(It is very humid in Florida.)
Hace mucho viento en Tarifa, lo que es ideal para el windsurf.
(It is very windy in Tarifa, which is ideal for windsurfing.)
Llueve mucho en primavera.
(It rains a lot in spring.)
Siempre está soleado en Cádiz.
(It's always sunny in Cadiz.)
Hasta ahora, no ha nevado mucho en Cleveland este invierno.
(So far, it hasn't snowed much in Cleveland this winter.)
El cielo está despejado hoy.
(The sky is clear today.)
En el hemisferio sur, el verano tiene lugar durante los meses de diciembre, enero y febrero.
(In the southern hemisphere, summer occurs during the months of December, January, and February.)
Fun fact! Have you heard the saying En abril, aguas mil? It is a meteorological proverb that refers to the fact that it usually rains a lot in the month of April, which is in the middle of spring. There are many other sayings like this one: En enero, bufanda, capa y sombrero; Agosto, frío en el rostro; Año de nieves, año de bienes. Do you know any others?
Está cayendo un chaparrón. (It's pouring.)
Está lloviendo a mares. (It's raining cats and dogs.)
Hace un día de perros. (It's a miserable/terrible day.)
Hace un frío que pela. (It's freezing cold.)
Llueve a cántaros. (It's pouring rain.)
Fun fact! The saying Hace un dia de perros has nothing to do with dogs, at least not the dogs we usually talk about. It actually has to do with the constellation of Canis Major (Latin for Greater Dog), which made its appearance in the sky on the hottest and most sweltering days. Do you know any other interesting weather expressions in English?
¡Eso es todo! That’s it! You should now feel comfortable asking about the weather (¿Qué tiempo hace?), talking about the weather right now using the verbs hacer (Hace calor), estar (Está nevando) and haber (Hay niebla). Although we commonly use the present tense to talk about the weather right now, we can talk about the weather using any tense: past, future, and other tenses. Finally, you learned a few interesting sayings/expressions that we have in Spanish to refer to the weather (Hace un día de perros).
Before you leave, let’s practice what you learned!
If you don’t know a term, you can look it up in an online dictionary such as https://www.linguee.com/english-spanish.
a. It’s cold
b. It’s hot
c. It’s sunny
d. It’s nice out
e. It’s windy
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Answer Key:
a. Hace fresco
b. Hace sol y calor
c. Llueve mucho y hace buen tiempo
d. Nieva y hace frío
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Answer Key:
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Answer Key:
a. vamos a la playa.
b. no puedo ver nada.
c. necesitamos un paraguas.
d. me abrigo.
e. nos gusta caminar en el parque.
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Answer Key:
Alicia Fernández is a content writer at Berges Institute.