How to talk about the weather in Spanish

Talking about the weather is a common topic in conversations, specially when we don’t know what to talk about, isn’t it?

So knowing how to talk about the weather in Spanish is interesting and helpful, because it’s a great topic for breaking the ice (‘romper el hielo’ in Spanish).

How to ask the weather in Spanish

To ask How’s the weather?/What’s the weather like? in Spanish, we say: ¿Qué tiempo hace?

If we want to ask how’s the weather in a specific city, country… we add the preposition “en” and the name of the place. For example: ¿Qué tiempo hace en Valencia?

So, how would you say What’s the weather like in Barcelona?
Drag and drop the words below and make the question! 😀 Then click on “Comprobar” and see if your question is correct or not.

Spanish vocabulary related to the weather

See on each tab phrases, verbs, nouns and adjectives related to the weather in Spanish and some advice about writing phrases related to this topic.

Phrases & Idioms ☀️

Verbs 🌈

Nouns and adjectives ❄️

Phrases & Idioms ☀️

Verbs 🌈

Nouns and adjectives ❄️

Phrases about the weather in Spanish: listen to some examples

Hear some examples of useful phrases related to the weather in Spanish by clicking each drawing.

How to write about the weather in Spanish: basic structures

There are some general structures that you may follow when writing sentences in Spanish related to weather. We are going to see four different structures:

How to describe the current and general weather conditions. In most cases we will use a form of the verb hacer (hace) + noun; the verb “hacer” will be in its impersonal form, which is the 3rd person in singular. For example: hace + frío/calor/viento.
How to say the current temperature in Spanish. In this case we have to use the 3rd person in singular of the verb HABER, which is hay. The structure is hay + number of degrees + grados. For example, we want to say the current temperature in Lime (Peru), we would say: Hay 23 grados en Lima.
How to say that a specific weather condition is happening right now. In Spanish, if we want to say that something is happening right now, we use the verb estar + following verb in gerundio. This is the same in English, because we say “it is snowing”, using the verb to be + the following verb in gerund. In Spanish we would say: Está nevando.
How to say that a specific weather condition is going to happen imminently or in the near future. For this case we use the 3rd person in singular of the verb IR (va) + preposition a + weather verb in infinitive. If it is going to rain, in Spanish we say va a llover.

As you have seen, talking about the weather in Spanish is simple, specially if you talk English, since the sentence structures have many similarities in both languages. However, to learn all the phrases, verbs, adjetives… related to the weather in Spanish, it is highly recommended to practise with exercises. This way, the structures are learned not simply by memorizing them, but by acquiring them in a meaningful context. For this reason, we encourage you to do all the following exercises, step by step, and with this page open in order to be able to solve your doubts while you are doing them.

After this list of exercises, you can find a link to download the “Talking about weather in Spanish” booklet, on which you will find a summary of this post, mind maps and additional worksheets. It is free and it does not require a subscription or anything like that.