004. Weather in Spanish

Talking about weather in Spanish is a bit difficult sometimes, we have different options to say exactly the same thing: “It is cold”. So here you gonna learn in the easiest and simplest way.

First of all, let’s learn the verbs we are gonna use to talk about temperature/weather.

• Verb to be “ser”: use this one only to talk about “permanent/ lasting” type of weather and temperature from a place. Example: El Polo Norte es frío, the North Pole is cold. We know by fact that this is a super cold place.

• Verb to be “estar”: for daily use, how is the weather and temperature at any moment. Example: Hoy está frío: today is cold. This is the closest way the English form.

• Verb to do “hacer”: also for daily use, works the same as “estar”. Example: Hace frío, English: It is cold, Spanish: It does cold. As you can see the translation is different to English.

For now, we are gonna focus on the next two verbs only. These examples are in simple present tense, but remember that you can change them to other tenses as past: It was cold yesterday: estuvo frío ayer.

1.Estar:

Formula: Estar (conjugated in third person singular: él, Ella, usted está) + temperature word.

• Temperature:

Question: ¿Cómo está la temperatura? What’s the temperature like?

Está frío: It is cold

Está caliente: It is hot, warm

Está caluroso: It is hot, warm

Está fresco: It is fresh (cool)

Está bien: It is okay!

• Degrees:

Question: ¿A cuántos grados estamos? (At how many degrees we are?)

- Estamos a 20 grados Celsius (It is 20 °C) -We are at 20 degrees.

- Estamos a 68 grados Fahrenheit. (It is 68 °F) -We are at 68 degrees.

• Weather:

Question: ¿Cómo está el clima? How is the weather?

Está soleado: It is sunny

Está nublado: It is cloudy

Está oscuro: It is dark

Está húmedo: It is humid

Está ventoso: It is windy

Está despejado: It is clear (the sky)

Está lluvioso: It is rainy

Está lloviendo: It is raining

2. Hacer:

Formula: Hacer (conjugated in third person singular: él, Ella, usted hace) + weather word.

We are gonna treat the verb “hacer” as he, she, it since in Spanish we say: he/she does, did, will do, etc.

• Temperature

Question: ¿Qué temperatura hace?, English: wha’s the temperature?. Spanish: What temperature does?

Hace frío: It is cold (It does cold)

Hace calor*: It is hot. (It does heat. Here we use the word “calor”, not “caliente”)

• Weather:

Question: ¿Cómo está el tiempo? How is the weather?

Hace viento: it is windy (It does wind)

Hace frío: It is cold (It does cold)

Hace sol: It is sunny (It does sun)

Hace buen tiempo: Nice weather (It does good weather)

Hace mal tiempo: Bad weather (It does bad weather)

Hace tormenta: It is stormy (It does storm)

Now, I would like to introduce the verb “haber” to this topic. The verb “haber” translates to “to have” in English, but it is more related to “there is, there are” than to “having something”.

3. Haber:

Hay sol: It is sunny (there is sun)

Hay lluvia: It is rainy (there is rain)

Hay llovizna: There is drizzle

Hay viento: It is wind (there is wind)

Hay nieve: It is snowy (there is snow)

Hay humedad: It is humid (there is humidity)

Hay neblina: It is foggy (there is fog)

Hay nubes negras: there are black clouds (rain is coming)

Use this verb to talk about the terrible weather conditions:

- Hay una tormenta: there is a storm

- Hay un huracán: there is a hurricane

- Hay una inundación: there is a flooding

- Hay una sequía: there is a drought

- Hay un tornado: there is a tornado

Casual expressions:

• Me muero de frío/calor: I am dying of cold/heat.

• Me estoy congelando: I am freezing

• Está lloviendo a cántaros: It is raining jugs

• Están lloviendo sapos y culebras/ perros y gatos: It is raining frogs and snakes, cats and dogs, etc. (people use other animals as well).

• Estoy sudando como un caballo: I am sweating like a horse (people use other animals as well).

• Parece que va a llover: It looks like is gonna rain.

Lastly, basic vocab:

• Temperatura: temperature

• Clima: weather (masculine noun: el clima)

• Tiempo: weather

• Grados centígrados: degrees Celsius

• Grados Fahrenheit: degrees Fahrenheit (used in USA)

• Calor: heat, warm

• Caliente: hot, warm (do not use it for people)

• Frío: cold

• Húmedo: humid

• Sunny: soleado

• Cloudy: nublado

• Lluvioso: rainy

• Ventoso: windy

• Caluroso: hot

• Cielo: sky

Hopefully, you learnt a lot from this blog. Meli :)