Weather Expressions and Idioms | Dutch Grammar

Weather is the safest small talk in the Netherlands, and the Dutch have a rich, often funny vocabulary for it — partly because there's so much of it, and most of it grey. To talk about weather you first need the grammatical engine that drives every weather statement: the impersonal het ("it"). Then you need the everyday verbs (regenen, vriezen, waaien, sneeuwen), the vivid idioms (het regent pijpenstelen, hondenweer), and a couple of proverbs that come up constantly. This page covers all three, with a literal gloss for every idiom so you can see why a Dutch speaker says the rain comes down in drainpipes.

The engine: impersonal het

Almost every Dutch weather statement is built on a dummy subject het plus a verb. There's no real "doer" — the sky isn't a person — so Dutch slots in het as a placeholder, exactly the way English uses "it" in it's raining. The crucial difference: in Dutch this het is never optional and never replaceable. You cannot say Regent on its own; you must say Het regent.

Dutch	Literal	English
het regent	it rains	it's raining
het sneeuwt	it snows	it's snowing
het vriest	it freezes	it's freezing
het waait	it blows	it's windy
het stormt	it storms	there's a gale / it's stormy
het hagelt	it hails	it's hailing
het dooit	it thaws	it's thawing

Neem een paraplu mee, het regent.

Take an umbrella, it's raining. (impersonal 'het regent' — the 'het' is obligatory)

Het vriest vannacht, dus de wegen kunnen glad zijn.

It's freezing tonight, so the roads may be slippery. ('het vriest')

Het waait hard vandaag — fietsen is bijna onmogelijk.

It's very windy today — cycling is almost impossible. ('het waait' = it's blowing/windy)

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For weather, temperature, and time, Dutch uses a fixed dummy het that can never be left out. English speakers rarely drop "it" here either — but speakers of pro-drop languages (Spanish, Italian, Polish) routinely forget it. If your verb describes the weather, it needs a het in front of it.

Lekker weer and the rest of the noun phrases

Not everything is a verb. The most-used weather word in the country is the adjective lekker ("nice, pleasant") glued to weer ("weather"): lekker weer. Lekker normally means "tasty," but applied to weather it just means agreeable. The opposite everyday word is slecht weer ("bad weather"), or the wonderful hondenweer ("dog's weather" — foul, filthy weather you wouldn't send a dog out in).

Wat een lekker weer vandaag, zullen we naar het strand?

What lovely weather today, shall we head to the beach? ('lekker weer' = nice weather)

Blijf maar binnen, het is echt hondenweer.

Just stay inside, it's truly filthy weather. ('hondenweer' = dog's weather, i.e. miserable)

We hebben de hele vakantie slecht weer gehad.

We had bad weather the whole holiday. ('slecht weer')

The rain idioms: pijpenstelen and gieten

This is where Dutch gets colourful. When it rains hard, the standard idiom is het regent pijpenstelen — literally "it's raining pipe-stems / drainpipes." A pijpensteel is the long stem of a pipe (or a drainpipe), and the image is of rain falling in long straight rods. It's the exact equivalent of English "raining cats and dogs," and crucially you must not translate the English idiom literally — het regent katten en honden is meaningless to a Dutch ear.

Wacht even met weggaan, het regent pijpenstelen.

Hold off on leaving, it's raining cats and dogs. (literally 'raining drainpipes' — the standard Dutch idiom)

The plainer way to say "it's pouring" is het giet — from gieten, "to pour" (as you pour water from a jug). Stronger still is het plenst or het stortregent ("it's bucketing down").

Ik ben doorweekt — het giet buiten.

I'm soaked through — it's pouring outside. ('het giet' = it's pouring, from 'gieten' = to pour)

We renden naar binnen toen het plotseling begon te stortregenen.

We ran inside when it suddenly started bucketing down. ('stortregenen' = to pour with rain)

The cold idioms: vriezen dat het kraakt

For a hard frost, the vivid idiom is het vriest dat het kraakt — "it's freezing so hard that it creaks/cracks," the image being ice and frozen ground creaking underfoot. It's the standard way to describe a deep, biting frost.

Trek je dikke jas aan, het vriest dat het kraakt.

Put on your thick coat, it's freezing hard. (literally 'it freezes that it creaks')

Vannacht vroor het dat het kraakte; de sloten lagen dik onder het ijs.

Last night it froze hard; the ditches were thick with ice. (past tense 'vroor ... kraakte')

Related cold vocabulary worth banking: het is ijzig (it's icy), het is glad (it's slippery — important on Dutch bike paths), er ligt sneeuw (there's snow lying), and kruiend ijs / schaatsweer (skating weather — a national obsession when the canals freeze).

The proverbs: na regen komt zonneschijn, weer of geen weer

Two weather proverbs come up so often they're practically everyday phrases. Na regen komt zonneschijn — "after rain comes sunshine" — is the Dutch "every cloud has a silver lining," a stock consolation that things will improve.

Maak je geen zorgen, na regen komt zonneschijn.

Don't worry, every cloud has a silver lining. (literally 'after rain comes sunshine')

Weer of geen weer — "weather or no weather" — means "come rain or shine, no matter the weather." It's used to stress that something happens regardless.

Hij gaat elke ochtend hardlopen, weer of geen weer.

He goes running every morning, come rain or shine. ('weer of geen weer' = whatever the weather)

One more, seasonal: april doet wat hij wil ("April does what it wants") and the rhyme aprilletje zoet geeft nog weleens een witte hoed — "sweet little April still gives a white hat now and then," the witte hoed being a late dusting of snow, a folk warning that warm April days can still turn to frost. Both capture the proverbially fickle Dutch spring.

Het was vanmorgen twintig graden en nu hagelt het — tja, april doet wat hij wil.

It was twenty degrees this morning and now it's hailing — well, April does what it wants. (proverb for fickle spring weather)

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Notice that weer means both "weather" and "again." Context disambiguates: mooi weer (nice weather) vs tot weer-type uses (again). In weer of geen weer, it's "weather."

Common Mistakes

❌ Regent vandaag.

Incorrect — Dutch weather verbs need the obligatory dummy subject 'het': 'Het regent'.

✅ Het regent vandaag.

It's raining today.

❌ Het regent katten en honden.

Incorrect — this is a word-for-word calque of the English idiom and means nothing in Dutch.

✅ Het regent pijpenstelen.

It's raining cats and dogs (literally 'drainpipes').

❌ Is regen buiten.

Incorrect — 'rain' here is the verb 'regenen', and it still needs 'het': 'Het regent'.

✅ Het regent buiten.

It's raining outside.

❌ Het is winderig vandaag, dus het waait niet.

Self-contradicting and unnatural — Dutch normally just says 'het waait' for 'it's windy' rather than the adjective 'winderig'.

✅ Het waait hard vandaag.

It's very windy today.

❌ Het weer is lekker.

Understandable but unidiomatic — Dutch glues the adjective straight to the noun: 'lekker weer', often without 'het is'.

✅ Wat een lekker weer!

What lovely weather!

Key Takeaways

Every Dutch weather verb needs the obligatory dummy het: het regent, het vriest, het waait, het stormt — never dropped.
lekker weer = nice weather; hondenweer = foul weather; slecht weer = bad weather.
Hard rain is het regent pijpenstelen ("drainpipes," = cats and dogs) or het giet ("it's pouring"); never calque the English idiom.
Hard frost is het vriest dat het kraakt ("it freezes that it creaks").
Stock proverbs: na regen komt zonneschijn (every cloud has a silver lining) and weer of geen weer (come rain or shine).

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