The weather

Hoy hace buen tiempo

Let’s learn how to describe the weather in Spanish.

The Spanish word for weather is tiempo. This word can mean two things – time and weather. Normally, the context and grammar help avoid the confusion, and it becomes quite clear what the word tiempo is referred to.

¿Qué tiempo hace hoy? – What is the weather like today?

Hace …

Hace is the verb, that is used as an impersonal predicate in many expressions referred to the weather. It has no straight translation into English. It’s kind of a Spanish speaking tradition. If you try to translate it literally, you will get: What weather is it making today?

Hoy hace buen tiempo – Today the weather is good

Hoy hace mal tiempo – Today the weather is bad

Here you have more examples of sentences with the verb hace.

Hoy hace frío — Today it’s cold

Hoy hace calor — Today it’s hot

Hace viento — It’s windy

Hace sol — It’s sunny

Hace fresquito – It’s chilly

Surprisingly enough, there is no suitable equivalent for warm in a similar expression. The Spanish word for warm is templado, but usually no one says Hoy hace templado. Instead, referring to a warm weather, you will hear this:

Hoy hace bueno – Today it’s warm

Another thing you should pay attention to, is that the words frío, calor, viento and sol are nouns. This means, that if you need to say very cold, very hot, and so on, you should say: mucho frío, mucho calor, mucho viento, mucho sol.

Hoy hace mucho frío – Today it’s very cold

Hoy hace mucho calor – Today it’s very hot

Hoy hace mucho sol – It’s very sunny today

Don’t say: Hoy hace muy calor

However, the words buen, mal and fresquito are adjectives, and require the adverb muy when needed.

Hace muy buen tiempo

Hace muy mal tiempo

Hace muy fresquito

Try it yourself:

What’s the weather like today?

The weather is good today

The weather is very bad

Is it hot today?

No, today it’s very cold

It’s very windy

When it comes to other weather events, like rain, snow and others, the verb hace isn’t already used.

Llover

llover – to rain

Llueve – It rains

Está lloviendo – It’s raining

la lluvia – the rain

Llueve is the third person singular of llover. It’s Presente Simple, which is referred to a regular action, not happening right now.

En otoño llueve mucho — It rains a lot in the autumn

If you need to say, that it’s raining now, use Presente Continuo:

Está lloviendo ahora – It’s raining now

If you need a noun, use lluvia.

la lluvia – the rain

Me gusta la lluvia – I like the rain

Try it yourself:

I like when it rains

Now it’s not raining

Do you like the rain in summer?

Nevar

nevar – to snow

Nieva – It snows

Está nevando – It’s snowing

la nieve – the snow

The same logic applies to the snow.

En Tenerife no nieva nunca – It never snows in Tenerife

Está nevando ahora en tu ciudad? – Is it snowing now in your city?

Hay mucha nieve en la calle – There is much snow in the street

Try it yourself:

Leo says that it’s snowing

We love the first snow

It snows a lot here in winter

Other weather events

está nublado – it’s cloudy

una nube – a cloud

No veo las estrellas, porque está nublado – I don’t see the stars, because it’s cloudy

Hay muchas nubes, puede llover – There are a lot of clouds, it can rain

está despejado – the sky is clear

Toda la semana está despejado – The sky is clear during the whole week

No hay ninguna nube en el cielo – There is no cloud in the sky

Try it yourself:

Today the weather is fine

The sky is clear and it’s very sunny

When it’s cloudy, we don’t go to the beach

As you might have noticed, Spanish verbs have two different forms, that seem similar. For example, nevar can be changed both to nevando and nevado, but they have different meaning. They are different parts of speech. Nublado is not the same as nublando. The n letter matters. In the expressions above some verbs end in ado, the others end in ando. These forms are yet unknown to you. Simply, learn all these expressions exactly as they appear in the lesson. You will get familiar with them very soon.

Temperature

To say the temperature in Spanish, you can use estar + a. This is the same combination, that is used with dates, if you remember.

Estamos a veinte grados – It’s 20 degrees

¿A cuántos grados estáis hoy? – How many degrees do you have today?

In Spain, as well as in Latin America, the European Celsius standard is used to say the temperature. They call it centígrados.

Estamos a quince grados centígrados – It’s 15 degrees Celsius

If you need to specify whether it’s plus or minus, several options are possible.

a.

más – plus

menos – minus

Estamos a más quince grados – It’s +15 degrees

Estamos a menos quince grados – It’s -15 degrees

b.

sobre cero – above zero

bajo cero – below zero

Estamos a quince grados sobre cero – It’s 15 degrees above zero

Estamos a quince grados bajo cero – It’s 15 degrees below zero

c.

de calor – hot

de frío – cold

Estamos a treinta grados de calor – It’s 30 degrees hot

Estamos a diez grados de frío – It’s 10 degrees cold

Finally, it’s worth noting, that with temperature you can also apply the impersonal verb hace.

¿Cuántos grados hace ahí? – How many degrees is it there?

Aquí hace más siete grados – It’s +7 degrees here

Try it yourself:

What’s the temperature there?

It’s five degrees above zero

It’s minus three degrees

In Málaga it’s 35 degrees hot now

Here it’s minus twenty two degrees Celsius

Now you know how to describe the most common weather conditions and temperature in Spanish. There is quite a lot, that could be added to this infinite topic, but for now it’s more than enough. The most important thing is that you know the patterns, to which you’ll add new vocabulary later.