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100+ Terms for the Weather in Spanish

Over the past two years of my time abroad in Spain, there have been countless moments when bringing up the weather has saved me from otherwise uncomfortable silences with Spaniards.

Luckily, the weather in Madrid is sporadic enough to always be a relevant topic when I find myself grasping at straws to make small talk.

Read on to learn more than 100 weather expressions in Spanish, so you can say way more than just hace calor (it’s hot) and hace frío (it’s cold).

How to Ask About the Weather in Spanish

A rainy day shown through a raindrop spotted window

Like in English, there are multiple ways to ask about the weather in Spanish. Here are a few common questions you’ll hear and use all the time:

Common Spanish Weather Words

A blue sky with puffy white clouds

SpanishEnglish
El tiempo Weather
El clima Climate, weather
Llover To rain
Nevar To snow
Tronar To thunder
Chispear To drizzle
Lloviznar To drizzle
La granizada Hailstorm
El bochorno Sultry or muggy weather
La tormenta Storm
La racha / ráfaga Gust (of wind)
El sol Sun
La luna Moon
La nube Cloud
El viento Wind
La nieve Snow
El hielo Ice
La niebla Fog
El granizo Hail
El pronóstico Forecast
Grados Degrees
La brisa Breeze
La tormenta de nieve Blizzard
La sequía Drought
Seco Dry

Spanish Weather Expressions with Verbs Hacer, Haber and Estar

A clear summer day over a turquoise sea

Hacer — The weather “does” or “makes”

Oh hacer, that complex Spanish verb that seems like it can mean so many different things. When talking about the weather, we use the hace form in sentences like:

¡Cómo hace calor!

How hot it is!

Here are a bunch of other ways to talk about the weather using hacer.

SpanishEnglish
Hace buen tiempo The weather is good
Hace un día despejado It’s a clear day
Hace mal tiempo The weather is bad
Hace un día tormentoso It’s a stormy day
Hace frío It’s cold
Hace calor It’s hot
Hace fresco It’s brisk/chilly
Hace sol It’s sunny
Hace un día soleado It’s a sunny day
Hace viento It’s windy
Hace aire It’s breezy
Hace un calor tremendo It’s scorching hot
Hace muchísimo frío / calor It’s very, very cold/hot
Aquí siempre hace mucho frío / calor en esta época It’s always very cold/hot here at this time of the year
Hace un día horrible It’s a horrible day (weather wise)
Hace un día muy bueno / malo It's a very good/bad day
No hace nada de frío / calor It’s not cold/hot at all
Hace un frío que pela It’s freezing cold

Haber — “There is” weather

Another Spanish all-purpose verb and helping verb, for haber, you use the hay form, which means something like “there is.” 

SpanishEnglish
Hay nubes It's cloudy
Hay lloviznas It's sprinkling
Hay lluvias torrenciales It's pouring
Hay granizo It's hailing
Hay humedad It's humid
Hay niebla It's foggy
Hay neblina It's misty
Hay tormenta It's stormy
Hay relámpagos It’s lightning
Hay un huracán There’s a hurricane
Hay un tornado There’s a tornado
Hay un terremoto There’s an earthquake
Hay una inundación There’s a flood
Hay sol The sun is shining
Hay luna The moon is out

To dive deeper into the verb haber, click over to this post.

Estar — The weather “is”

When using estar to talk about the weather, you usually use the third person present form (está), like in this sentence:

Está nevando.

It’s snowing.

Here are some more common weather phrases in Spanish using estar:

SpanishEnglish
Está nublado It's cloudy
Está lloviznando It's drizzling
Está lloviendo muy fuerte It's raining very strong
Está granizando It's hailing
Está bochornoso It’s muggy
Está húmedo It’s humid
Estamos a... grados bajo cero We are at...degrees below zero
Estamos a... grados We're at...degrees
Está lloviendo a cántaros It’s raining cats and dogs

If you want to review when to use estar and when to use ser, the other Spanish verb for “to be,” check out this handy post.

Other Spanish Weather Expressions

A stormy sky with lightning over a large city

SpanishEnglish
¿Tienes frío / calor? Are you cold/hot?
Estoy sudado I'm sweaty
¡Estoy sudando como un pollo! I’m sweating like a chicken! (Think: I’m sweating like a pig!)
Me estoy asando I’m roasting
Estoy cocido I’m boiling (hot)
Estoy congelado I’m freezing cold
Estoy helado I'm freezing cold
¡Qué frío / calor tengo! I am so cold/hot!
Me muero de calor / frío I’m dying of heat/cold
Soy muy friolero / friolento I’m a wimp when it comes to the cold
¡Ay qué calor! It’s so hot!
¡Qué frío / calor hace! It’s really cold/hot!
Por mucho que quiera ser, en julio poco ha de llover As much as it wants to rain, in July it will do so very little
Julio caliente, quema al más valiente July heats and burns even the bravest
En agosto, sandía y melón buen refresco son In August, watermelon and melon are good refreshment.
La primavera, la sangre altera Spring is in the air
Agosto fríe el rostro August fries your face
Hasta el 40 de mayo, no te quites el sayo Don’t take your sweater off until May 40th

May 40th is just a funny way of saying June 9th.

This extremely madrileño (from Madrid) phrase refers to the fact that Madrid weather can be a bit fickle so you shouldn’t assume there will be no rain or cold just because the summer weather seems to have arrived.

Sayo is an old-fashioned Spanish word meaning “smock” or “tunic” but would refer to a sweater in modern times.

Spanish Weather Quiz: Test Yourself!

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FluentU brings native videos within reach with interactive transcripts. You can tap on any word to look it up instantly. Every definition has examples that have been written to help you understand how the word is used. If you see an interesting word you don’t know, you can add it to a vocab list.

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Review a complete interactive transcript under the Dialogue tab, and find words and phrases listed under Vocab.

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