Non-Fiction: Прогноз погоди (A Weather Forecast)

A weather forecast is the most useful piece of formal Ukrainian a B1 learner can master: it appears nightly on every news channel, it recycles the same dozen constructions, and almost none of them have a personal subject. Forecasting is agentless by nature — nobody "does" the weather, it simply will turn cold, is expected, is forecast — so the genre leans hard on the synthetic future, impersonal verbs, and subjectless passives that beginner courses barely touch. Read one forecast closely and you have a template for an entire register. The text below is written in authentic forecast style.

The text

За́втра в Украї́ні перева́жно хма́рно. На за́ході та в центра́льних областя́х очі́кується невели́кий дощ, місця́ми з гроза́ми. Уночі́ та вра́нці на доро́гах можли́вий тума́н.

Tomorrow in Ukraine [it will be] mostly cloudy. In the west and in the central regions light rain is expected, with thunderstorms in places. At night and in the morning fog is possible on the roads.

На́прикінці ти́жня істо́тно похолода́є: вдень сто́впчик термо́метра опу́ститься до во́сьми — десяти́ гра́дусів тепла́, уночі́ — до нуля́. Ві́тер півні́чно-схі́дний, помі́рний. За слова́ми синоптикі́в, ста́ла со́нячна пого́да встано́виться лише́ з понеді́лка.

Toward the end of the week it will turn substantially colder: in the daytime the thermometer (lit. "the little column of the thermometer") will drop to eight–ten degrees above zero, at night — to zero. The wind [will be] north-easterly, moderate. According to the forecasters, settled sunny weather will set in only from Monday.

This is original prose written in the standard forecast register. The translation is fairly literal, to keep the grammar visible; note how often English has to insert a subject or a verb "to be" that Ukrainian leaves out.

Line-by-line grammar

«За́втра в Украї́ні перева́жно хма́рно» — the subjectless weather predicate

The opening sentence has no subject and no verb you can see — just хма́рно ("[it is / will be] cloudy"), a predicative adverb doing the whole job. This is the core of weather Ukrainian: a state of the sky is expressed by an invariable -о word (хма́рно "cloudy," со́нячно "sunny," ві́тряно "windy," я́сно "clear"), with the copula simply absent in the present and supplied by бу́де for the future (бу́де хма́рно, "it will be cloudy"). There is nothing for the adverb to agree with — it never changes. Note also в Украї́ні, the modern standard "in Ukraine" (в + locative, never «на»), and за́втра ("tomorrow"), the time frame for the whole bulletin.

On these subjectless constructions, see Impersonal Constructions.

«очі́кується невели́кий дощ» — the agentless -ся passive

очі́кується is the reflexive (-ся) passive of очі́кувати ("to expect"): "is expected." There is no agent — nobody is named as doing the expecting, which is exactly the impersonal, authoritative tone a forecast wants. The grammatical subject is what is expected: невели́кий дощ ("light rain," nominative). The verb agrees with it (singular очі́кується). This -ся passive is the single most important construction in the journalistic and forecast register; it lets the writer state facts without ever saying "we" or "the meteorologists." Later in the text встано́виться ("will set in") uses the same -ся, here in its spontaneous/intransitive sense ("the weather establishes itself").

On this voice, see The Reflexive Passive.

«місця́ми… можли́вий тума́н» — instrumental adverbials and a predicative adjective

Two compact forecast idioms here. місця́ми ("in places, here and there") is the noun мі́сце frozen in the instrumental plural and used adverbially — the genre is full of these (часа́ми "at times," подеку́ди "in some places"). And можли́вий тума́н ("fog [is] possible") is a predicative adjective with the copula dropped: можли́вий agrees with тума́н (masculine singular). Forecasts swing between adverb predicates (хма́рно) and adjective predicates (можли́вий, помі́рний) depending on whether the thing described is a state of the sky or a named phenomenon.

«істо́тно похолода́є… опу́ститься… встано́виться» — the synthetic future is the spine of the forecast

Every prediction in the bulletin rides on the synthetic (perfective) future, formed with present-tense endings on a perfective stem: похолода́є ("it will turn cold," from похолода́ти), опу́ститься ("will drop," from опусти́тися), встано́виться ("will set in"). похолода́є is also impersonal — a one-word "it will get cold," no subject at all, the weather-verb par excellence (cf. потеплі́є "it'll warm up," проясни́ться "it'll clear up," засні́жить "it'll start snowing"). The synthetic future is what makes forecast prose so terse: one perfective verb states a whole future event. The adverb істо́тно ("substantially, significantly") is itself a register marker — plain speech would say си́льно ("a lot").

On this form, see The Synthetic Future.

«до во́сьми — десяти́ гра́дусів тепла́… до нуля́» — temperatures with до + genitive

Temperatures are the forecast's signature number construction, and they live in the genitive. The preposition до ("down to / up to") governs the genitive: до во́сьми ("to eight"), до десяти́ ("to ten"), до нуля́ ("to zero") — the numerals themselves are in the genitive. The unit гра́дусів is genitive plural because Ukrainian numerals from five upward take the counted noun in the genitive plural (and a range like "8–10" follows the higher number). тепла́ ("of warmth," genitive) marks degrees above zero; for below zero you say гра́дусів моро́зу ("of frost") or use a minus. This до + genitive "down to a figure" pattern reappears for wind speed, rainfall, and pressure throughout the genre.

On counting nouns after numerals, see Numeral Agreement.

«На за́ході… в центра́льних областя́х… на доро́гах» — regions and the locative; на + accusative for time

Place is given in the locative case (the "where?" case), and the forecast is built on it: На за́ході ("in the west," на + locative), в центра́льних областя́х ("in the central regions," в + locative plural), на доро́гах ("on the roads"). Crucially, contrast this with the time expressions: на за́втра / на́прикінці ти́жня use на with the accusative to mean "for [a coming period]" — на + accusative answers "for when?", while на + locative answers "where?". Same preposition, two cases, two jobs. The genre also fronts these phrases (На за́ході очі́кується…) so the bulletin reads region by region.

On the place uses, see Uses of the Locative.

«За слова́ми синоптикі́в» — attribution in the formal register

За слова́ми синоптикі́в ("according to the forecasters," literally "by the words of the meteorologists") is the standard attribution phrase of Ukrainian news prose: за + the instrumental слова́ми, plus the source in the genitive (синоптикі́в). It is the journalistic equivalent of English "according to…" and lets the writer hedge a claim onto a source. Its cousins — за да́ними ("according to the data"), за прогно́зом ("according to the forecast"), як повідомля́є… ("as … reports") — are worth collecting as a set, because no formal Ukrainian text goes far without one.

On the connectors that knit such prose together (отже, однак, таким чином), see Connectors: Cause and Result.

Glossary: forecast / formal vocabulary

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