Future weather conditions (verða)

Predicting the Weather with Verða

Icelandic does not have a dedicated future tense like the English word "will." When talking about things that will happen or conditions that will exist in the future—especially for weather forecasts—Icelandic uses the verb verða (to become / will be) instead of vera (to be).

Tomorrow it will be clear and very mild weather.
Á morgun verður heiðskírt og mjög milt veður.
The wind will be very sharp today with many gusts.
Vindurinn verður mjög snarpur í dag með mörgum hviðum.

The Preposition Vegna

When giving weather predictions, you will often want to explain why certain conditions are expected. The preposition vegna (because of) is perfect for this.

Crucially, vegna forces the noun that follows it into the genitive case.

Genitive of -ing and -un Nouns

Many weather-related processes in Icelandic are derived feminine nouns that end in the suffixes -ing or -un.

the cooling (becoming cold)
kólnunin
the ice formation
hálkumyndunin

When these feminine nouns take the genitive case—such as immediately after vegna—their singular ending becomes -ar.

Nominative (Basic Form)Genitive (After vegna)Meaning
rigningrigningarrain
kólnunkólnunarcooling
hálkumyndunhálkumyndunarice formation
mengunmengunarpollution

Let's see this genitive ending in action:

The garden will be wet because of rain.
Garðurinn verður blautur vegna rigningar.
The road will be closed because of ice formation.
Vegurinn verður lokaður vegna hálkumyndunar.
The weather will be bad because of cooling.
Veðrið verður slæmt vegna kólnunar.

Putting It Together

Now we can combine our future predictions using verða with the cause of the weather using vegna and our newly declined genitive nouns:

Because of severe cooling, there will be a lot of ice on the road.
Vegna mikillar kólnunar verður mikil hálka á veginum.
Because of snow showers and ice formation, the road will be closed tomorrow.
Vegna élja og hálkumyndunar verður vegurinn lokaður á morgun.
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