Talking about the weather in Spanish means choosing among four verbs: hacer, estar, haber (in the form hay), and a handful of impersonal verbs like llover and nevar. Each covers a different kind of weather phenomenon.
Hacer: general conditions
Use hace with nouns like calor, frío, sol, viento, fresco, and general weather nouns. The verb stays in the third-person singular.
Hace calor.
It's hot.
Hace frío esta noche.
It's cold tonight.
Hace viento en la costa.
It's windy on the coast.
Hace buen tiempo hoy.
The weather is nice today.
Hizo mal tiempo todo el fin de semana.
The weather was bad all weekend.
Estar: current sky or atmosphere
Use está with adjectives and with gerunds of weather verbs.
Está nublado.
It's cloudy.
Está despejado.
It's clear.
Está lloviendo.
It's raining.
Está nevando en las montañas.
It's snowing in the mountains.
El cielo está gris.
The sky is gray.
Hay: things in the sky or air
Use hay to say that something is present: fog, thunder, a storm, lightning.
Hay niebla en el valle.
There's fog in the valley.
Hay tormenta.
There's a storm.
Hay mucha humedad.
It's very humid.
Hay rayos y truenos.
There's lightning and thunder.
Impersonal weather verbs
These verbs only exist in the third-person singular. They describe the phenomenon directly.
| Infinitive | Meaning | Sample form |
|---|---|---|
| llover | to rain | llueve, llovió, está lloviendo |
| nevar | to snow | nieva, nevó, está nevando |
| granizar | to hail | graniza, granizó |
| tronar | to thunder | truena, tronó |
| lloviznar | to drizzle | llovizna, está lloviznando |
| amanecer | to dawn | amanece, amaneció |
| anochecer | to get dark | anochece, anocheció |
Llueve mucho en abril.
It rains a lot in April.
Ayer nevó toda la noche.
Yesterday it snowed all night.
Granizó por media hora.
It hailed for half an hour.
Temperature and seasons
¿Qué tiempo hace?
What's the weather like?
¿A cuánto estamos hoy?
What's the temperature today?
Estamos a treinta grados.
It's thirty degrees.
En verano hace mucho calor.
In summer it's very hot.
En invierno llueve bastante.
In winter it rains quite a bit.
Notice that for how the human body feels cold or hot, Spanish uses tener, not hacer. See tener expressions.
Hace frío y tengo frío.
It's cold out and I'm cold.
Related Topics
- Expressions with HacerA2 — Idioms built around hacer, from weather to time to everyday chores.
- Expressions with TenerA2 — Idiomatic expressions with tener where English uses the verb to be.
- Tener: Full ConjugationA1 — Complete conjugation of the verb tener across all major tenses and moods