Talking about the weather in Spanish, as with any other language, is a great conversation starter and offers an easy opportunity to practice speaking. Being prepared with the right Spanish weather expressions will clearly help when traveling to a Spanish-speaking country, while learning weather words in Spanish will get you engaged in small talk. Wherever you go, everyone seems to have something to say when describing (or complaining about) the weather!

Today’s post will introduce a wide variety of Spanish weather words. We’ll start off with some of the standard questions about the weather. Then we’ll dive right in with the most important nouns and adjectives about weather in Spanish, followed by the right Spanish verbs to use when we talk about weather. Finally, we’ll learn some of the best Spanish weather expressions that you can use in conversation to get that small talk flowing. Let’s get started!

Asking About the Weather in Spanish

Let’s start off with a few of the most common weather-related questions. First though, we’ll start with how to say weather in Spanish: as you’ll see in the questions below, we can use two Spanish words for weather: tiempo and clima.

Spanish Weather Vocabulary

Now that you know the questions about weather in Spanish, you’re ready for a bunch of useful vocabulary words we use to describe the weather. We’ll start with your standard weather nouns and adjectives, and then include a section on extreme weather events.

Spanish Weather Nouns

Spanish Weather Adjectives

Extreme Weather Words in Spanish

The Seasons in Spanish

It’s useful to be able to talk about timeframes when we talk about weather. We’ll introduce some pertinent Spanish seasons here to get you started. If you want to describe specific time periods, check out our other posts on the months in Spanish, the days of the week in Spanish, and on telling time in Spanish.

Spanish Weather Verbs

Spanish uses a few specific verbs to describe the weather in general: hacer, haber, and estar, each usually conjugated in the third-person singular as hace, hay, and está.  We use ser to talk about big-picture climate rather than temporal weather. There are also a number of verbs for specific types of weather. Let’s look at each of these here, with explanations and examples.

Hace: general weather conditions

Hacer is often translated as to do or to make. When we use hacer in Spanish to talk about the weather, always conjugated as hace in the third-person singular and followed by a noun, it’s how we say what the weather is “doing” or “making.” It’s our best choice when we’re describing our general feeling about the weather, as opposed to when we give specific details.

• Hace calor. / Hace frío. – It’s hot. / It’s cold.

• Hizo un buen tiempo ayer. – It was nice weather yesterday.

• Hace un tiempo terrible afuera. – It’s terrible weather outside.

• Hace sol. – It’s sunny.

For an in-depth look at more ways to use the verb hacer, check out our other post on to make in Spanish.

Hay: types of weather

Haber, conjugated as hay in third-person singular, translates as there is. We use this verb to say there is a specific type of weather, as in there is hail – hay granizo. Hay is generally paired with a noun.

• Hay un lindo clima hoy. – There is very nice weather today.

• Hay mucha neblina. – There’s a lot of mist.

• Hubo una ligera llovizna. – There was a light drizzle.

• ¡Ahora mismo hay un monzón! – There is a monsoon right now!

For a full-on explanation of this powerful little word, check out our post on hay.

Está: weather conditions

Estar is the impermanent form of to be, so when we conjugate it as está in the third person singular, we’re saying it is. This is the right verb when we use adjectives to talk about weather conditions at the moment.

We also use estar as an auxiliary verb in the present progressive tense, along with a weather-related verb in its gerund form. Gerunds are equivalent to English -ing words, so this is how we say things like it’s snowing – está nevando. See our dedicated post on present progressive Spanish for a detailed explanation on forming gerunds.

• Estaba lloviendo. – It was raining.

• Está lloviznando. – It’s drizzling.

• Está ventoso. – It’s windy.

• Está seco este mes. – It’s dry this month.

• Hoy está muy fuerte el sol. – The sun is very strong today.

Hace vs Hay vs Está for talking about weather

Now that we’ve seen how each of our three main Spanish weather verbs are used, let’s compare how we can describe a few types of weather with each. Note that we can only use certain nouns with hace.

Spanish verbs for specific weather

These verbs are used to describe specific weather conditions in Spanish. We always conjugate them in the third-person singular, and we often use the present progressive form as we discussed in the previous section on está.

Let’s see a few of these in action:

• It got cloudy. – Se nubló.

• It’s drizzling softly. – Está lloviznando suavemente.

• It’s snowing pretty hard. – Nieva bastante fuerte.

Ser: long-term climatic conditions

As we saw above, we use the verb estar to describe temporal weather conditions. Ser is our other Spanish verb for to be, which carries a more permanent meaning. We can therefore use ser to describe an area’s climate rather than the temporary weather.

• Argentina is a warm country – Argentina es un país cálido.

• Winter in Québec is very cold. – El invierno en Québec es muy frío.

• Seattle is extremely rainy – Seattle es extremadamente lluvioso.

• Global warming wasn’t an issue 100 years ago. – El calentamiento global no era un problema hace 100 años.

Spanish Weather Expressions

Now that you’ve got the basics for talking about the weather, are you ready to sound like a true local with these funny weather expressions in Spanish?

Conclusion

It’s definitely beneficial to know how to talk about the weather in Spanish, especially in most Spanish-speaking countries where the weather can change quickly or have extreme conditions. Everyone is willing to talk about the excessive heat or a sudden cold spell!

In this post we covered a bunch of weather words in Spanish, from the common nouns and adjectives to some of the more extreme climatic events. We talked all about using the right Spanish weather verbs, with a specific emphasis on the main three: hace, hay, and está. Finally, we introduced a handful of funny Spanish weather expressions to get you really talking like a local. We hope you’re feeling more comfortable with your small talk skills now, ready to talk all about the weather in Spanish!