Learn Italian: Ha nevicato la notte scorsa, quindi oggi non c'è il Carnevale. - It snowed last night, so today there is no Carnival.

Ha nevicato la notte scorsa, quindi oggi non c'è il Carnevale.

It snowed last night, so today there is no Carnival.

Breakdown of Ha nevicato la notte scorsa, quindi oggi non c'è il Carnevale.

Questions & Answers about Ha nevicato la notte scorsa, quindi oggi non c'è il Carnevale.

Why does this sentence use ha nevicato with avere instead of essere?

Weather verbs like nevicare (to snow) and piovere (to rain) are flexible in the past tense. You can use either avere (ha nevicato) or essere (è nevicato). Both are perfectly correct and mean the exact same thing here.

If I choose to use essere for the weather verb instead, does the ending of nevicato change?

No, it stays exactly the same in this case. Even though verbs using essere usually match their subject's gender and number, weather verbs do not have a specific subject. Because of this, the past participle defaults to the masculine singular ending -o, making it è nevicato.

Could I say ieri notte instead of la notte scorsa?

Yes, ieri notte is also very common for "last night". You might also see the adjective placed before the noun as la scorsa notte. All of these options are correct and completely interchangeable.

Why do we need the article il before Carnevale?

In Italian, festivals and major holidays like il Carnevale, il Natale (Christmas), and la Pasqua (Easter) almost always take a definite article. English drops the article for holidays, but Italian keeps it.