Learn German: Ist es heute warm und windig? - Is it warm and windy today?

Just like in English when we say 'it is warm', German uses the impersonal pronoun es (it) to talk about the weather or general conditions. There isn't a specific 'thing' that is warm, so es just acts as a placeholder to give the sentence a subject.

Why does the sentence start with Ist?

To form a yes/no question in German, you simply move the verb (here, ist) to the very beginning of the sentence. A normal statement would be 'Es ist heute warm' (It is warm today), so swapping the first two words makes it the question 'Ist es heute warm?'.

Why does heute (today) come before the weather words?

In German, words that tell us when something happens (like heute) usually come very early in the sentence, right after the verb and the subject. While in English we often put 'today' at the very end of the question ('Is it warm and windy today?'), German prefers to establish the time first.

Does the -ig ending on windig mean something specific?

Yes! The German ending -ig is often used to turn a noun into an adjective, exactly like adding '-y' does in English. Here, the noun der Wind (the wind) becomes the describing word windig (windy).