German weather runs on one grammatical idea: impersonality. There is no real subject doing the raining — German uses a dummy es ("it") that fills the subject slot without referring to anything, exactly as English does in "it's raining." So far so familiar. The trap waits in the personal half: when you feel cold, German does not say "I am cold" with a normal subject. It switches to the dative — Mir ist kalt, literally "to me it is cold." Saying Ich bin kalt describes your personality (cold-hearted), not your temperature. This page covers the impersonal weather verbs, temperature, and that high-frequency dative trap.
Impersonal weather verbs: es regnet
The core weather verbs are impersonal: they take es as a fixed, meaningless subject and never anything else. You cannot ask what rains — it just rains.
Zieh dir was an, es regnet schon wieder.
Put something on, it's raining again.
Letzte Nacht hat es zum ersten Mal geschneit.
Last night it snowed for the first time.
The full set works the same way: es regnet (rains), es schneit (snows), es hagelt (hails), es donnert (thunders), es blitzt (lightnings), es friert (freezes). For sunshine, German splits: the weather verb es doesn't extend to the sun, so you say Die Sonne scheint ("the sun is shining") with a real subject:
Endlich scheint mal wieder die Sonne.
Finally the sun is shining again.
Pass auf, es blitzt und donnert — geh nicht raus.
Watch out, there's lightning and thunder — don't go outside.
es ist + adjective: describing the weather
To describe conditions with an adjective, German uses es ist + adjective — again impersonal es:
Es ist heute richtig kalt und windig.
It's really cold and windy today.
Gestern war es noch sonnig, heute ist es bewölkt.
Yesterday it was still sunny, today it's cloudy.
The common adjectives: kalt / kühl / warm / heiß (cold / cool / warm / hot) and sonnig / bewölkt (or wolkig) / neblig / windig / schwül (sunny / cloudy / foggy / windy / humid-muggy). To ask, you say Wie ist das Wetter? ("What's the weather like?"):
— Wie ist das Wetter bei euch? — Schwül und neblig, leider.
— What's the weather like where you are? — Muggy and foggy, unfortunately.
For phenomena you treat as countable events, German reaches for es gibt ("there is/are"): Es gibt ein Gewitter ("there's a thunderstorm"), Es gibt Regen / Schnee ("there'll be rain / snow"):
Heute Nachmittag gibt es bestimmt ein Gewitter.
There's definitely going to be a thunderstorm this afternoon.
Temperature: Grad
Temperature uses the noun Grad ("degree"), and crucially Grad stays singular after a number — never Grade in this sense. You'll meet two patterns: Es sind 20 Grad (with plural sind, treating the degrees as a count) and the colloquial Es hat 20 Grad (literally "it has 20 degrees," common in speech). Below zero is minus or ... unter null:
Heute sind es nur fünf Grad, viel zu kalt für Mai.
It's only five degrees today, far too cold for May.
Morgen soll es minus zehn Grad geben.
It's supposed to be minus ten degrees tomorrow.
Im Auto hatte es bestimmt dreißig Grad.
It must have been thirty degrees in the car.
The dative trap: Mir ist kalt vs. Ich bin kalt
This is the highest-value point on the page. To say you feel cold or warm, German uses a dative experiencer: Mir ist kalt ("I'm cold"), Mir ist warm ("I'm warm/hot"). The person is in the dative (mir, dir, ihm, uns), there is no nominative "I," and the construction parallels the impersonal weather pattern — it's the same logic turned inward: the cold is happening to you, you are not the cold.
Mach bitte das Fenster zu, mir ist kalt.
Please close the window, I'm cold.
Ist dir warm? Du kannst die Jacke ausziehen.
Are you warm? You can take your jacket off.
Now the error English speakers make constantly: Ich bin kalt does not mean "I'm cold (temperature)." With a nominative subject and kalt, German describes a personality — cold-hearted, unfeeling. Saying Ich bin kalt to mean you're chilly is a real, comic mistake.
| German | Means |
|---|---|
| Es ist kalt. | It's cold. (the weather) |
| Mir ist kalt. | I'm cold. (I feel cold) |
| Ich bin kalt. | I'm cold-hearted. (NOT temperature!) |
A near-synonym for mir ist kalt is the verb frieren — Ich friere ("I'm freezing"):
Zieh dir eine Jacke an, sonst frierst du.
Put a jacket on, or you'll be cold.
Heavy rain and false friends: don't translate English idioms
English weather idioms almost never survive a literal translation. "It's raining cats and dogs" has no German equivalent — Hunde und Katzen regnen is meaningless. For heavy rain German says es gießt ("it's pouring," from gießen "to pour") or es schüttet ("it's bucketing down"):
Nimm einen Schirm mit, es gießt in Strömen.
Take an umbrella, it's pouring down.
Wir konnten nicht raus, es hat den ganzen Tag geschüttet.
We couldn't go out, it bucketed down all day.
There's also the cosy fixed phrase for a draft: Es zieht ("there's a draft") — literally "it pulls," nothing to do with English "draw":
Kannst du die Tür zumachen? Es zieht hier furchtbar.
Can you close the door? There's a terrible draft in here.
Seasons
Seasons take im (= in dem): im Frühling / Sommer / Herbst / Winter. Note all four are masculine, so all four contract to im:
Im Herbst ist das Wetter hier am schönsten.
In autumn the weather here is at its nicest.
Im Winter wird es schon um vier Uhr dunkel.
In winter it gets dark as early as four o'clock.
Common Mistakes
❌ Ich bin kalt. (meaning 'I feel cold')
Wrong — this says you're cold-hearted. Use the dative: Mir ist kalt.
✅ Mir ist kalt.
I'm cold.
❌ Es regnet Hunde und Katzen.
English idiom translated literally; meaningless in German.
✅ Es gießt / Es schüttet.
It's pouring down.
❌ Es ist zwanzig Grade.
After a number Grad stays singular and uses sind/hat: Es sind zwanzig Grad.
✅ Es sind zwanzig Grad.
It's twenty degrees.
❌ Die Sonne regnet.
Confuses the patterns; the sun shines (real subject), the dummy es rains.
✅ Es regnet, aber die Sonne scheint auch.
It's raining, but the sun's also shining.
❌ Wie ist der Wetter?
Wetter is neuter — das Wetter, so the question is Wie ist das Wetter?
✅ Wie ist das Wetter?
What's the weather like?
Key Takeaways
- Weather is impersonal: dummy es with regnet / schneit / hagelt / donnert / blitzt / friert; but Die Sonne scheint (real subject).
- Describe with es ist
- adjective (kalt, sonnig, bewölkt, neblig, windig, schwül); use es gibt for events (ein Gewitter).
- Temperature uses singular Grad: Es sind 20 Grad / Es hat 20 Grad.
- Personal cold/warmth is dative: Mir ist kalt / warm — Ich bin kalt means cold-hearted.
- Don't translate English weather idioms; heavy rain is es gießt / es schüttet, and es zieht is "there's a draft."
- Seasons: im Frühling / Sommer / Herbst / Winter.
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Start learning German→Related Topics
- Impersonal Verbs and es-SubjectsB1 — Verbs that take the dummy subject es, and why German says 'to me it is cold' instead of 'I am cold.'
- The Many Uses of esB1 — es is far more than 'it' — it is a neuter pronoun, an impersonal subject, a positional dummy that holds the front slot, and an anticipatory correlate for clauses.
- es gibt and Impersonal ConstructionsA2 — Why German says es gibt for 'there is/are' with the accusative and no plural, when to use es ist/es sind instead, and how impersonal es behaves.
- Expressing Feelings and Physical StatesB1 — The four systems for feelings — haben + noun (Hunger haben), sein + adjective (müde sein), reflexive verbs (sich freuen), and the dative experiencer (Mir ist schlecht, Mir tut der Kopf weh).
- Time ExpressionsA2 — When to drop the preposition (jeden Tag, accusative), when to use one (am Montag, im Januar), plus übermorgen, ab und zu, and the seit + present rule.
- ich bin kalt and Other Sein/Haben State ErrorsA2 — Why 'Ich bin kalt' means 'I'm cold-hearted' (not 'I feel cold') and 'Ich bin Hunger' is impossible — the German split between sein, haben, and the dative experiencer for sensations and states.