Chatting about the weather in Spanish – a great icebreaker!

A great way to strike up conversation in Spanish with a local is to ask a question about the weather or say something about the weather at the time. Weather is something that we all talk about either with people we know well or complete strangers therefore it is the ideal topic area to learn in Spanish to chat to anyone you meet.

What a nice day!

How hot it is!

Do you know if it’s going to rain tomorrow?

The key tenses you need to know are present, future and maybe past.

In this blog post we will look at some key phrases you could learn so that you can use them on your next holiday to chat with native Spanish speakers.

Using “Hace” (It does)

Hace sol – It’s sunny
Hace calor – It’s hot
Hace frío – It’s cold
Hace fresco – It’s chilly
Hace viento – It’s windy
Hace buen tiempo – It’s good weather
Hace mal tiempo – It’s bad weather

Add “mucho” to say “very”:

Hace mucho calor – It’s very hot

Or “tanto” to say “so …”:

Hace tanto frío – It’s so cold

When the weather “is”

Está nublado – It is cloudy
Está despejado – It’s clear
Está soleado – It’s sunny
Está lloviendo – It’s raining
Está nevando – It’s snowing

When “there is”

Hay niebla – It is foggy (“There is fog”)
Hay tormenta – There is a storm

It is probably better to learn the weather vocabulary in Spanish as a phrase rather than an isolated word so that you remember which verb to use with which type of weather as there is no definite rule as to whether to use hace, está or hay.

Spanish weather expressions

Llueve a cántaros – It’s raining buckets (cats and dogs)
Llueve a mares – It’s raining oceans
Chuzos de punta – heavy rain
¡Hace un frío que pela! – It’s so cold!

Statements

Sometimes you could just say one of the following statements and see who responds to you at the bar:

¡Qué calor (hace)! – How hot it is!
¡Qué frío (hace)! – How cold it is!

Seasons of the year (Las estaciones del año)

el invierno – winter
la primavera – spring
el verano – summer
el otoño – autumn

Using future tense with the weather

Use “va a + verb” – It is going to …

Va a llover – It is going to rain

Va a hacer sol – It is going to be sunny

Va a estar nublado – It is going to be cloudy

Va a haber una tormenta – There is going to be a storm

¿Crees que va a llover? – Do you think it’s going to rain?

Using past tenses with the weather

Hizo mucho frío ayer – It was really cold yesterday

Estuvo soleado el domingo – It was sunny on Sunday

Hubo una tormenta anoche – There was a storm last night

If you don’t state a specific time, you would use the imperfect tense:

Hacía mucho calor – It was really hot

Llovía mucho cuando salí de casa – It was raining a lot when I left home

Estaba nublado – It was cloudy

If you want to say that things other than the weather are “hot” or “cold” you wouldn’t use “hacer”, read this blog to find out more:

“How to say things are “hot” or “cold” in Spanish”