En resumen (the short version)
- Hace + a noun for what you feel (hace frío). Hay + a noun for what you can see in the sky (hay niebla). Está + an adjective for what the sky looks like (está nublado).
- Rain and snow have their own verbs: llueve and nieva. For the past, use hizo, ha hecho and llovió.
- Learn a few expressions from Spain, like hace un día de perros and hace un sol de justicia.
✌🏼 ¡Hola aventurero!
Picture a grey October morning. You look out of the window and want to say "it's cold, it's foggy and it's cloudy".
In Spanish, that's three different verbs: Hace frío, hay niebla y está nublado 🌫️
If that makes you want to go back to bed, tranquilo. There's a simple test for choosing the right one. Once you've got it, the rest is just Spanish weather expressions, and those are the fun part.
The quick test: hace, hay or está?
Ask yourself one question about what you want to say:
| Ask yourself… | Then use… | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Is it something you feel on your skin? | Hace + noun | Hace frío. Hace calor. Hace viento. Hace sol. |
| Is it something you can see in the sky or the air? | Hay + noun | Hay niebla. Hay nubes. Hay tormenta. |
| Are you describing what the sky or the day looks like? | Está + adjective | Está nublado. Está despejado. Está gris. |
And rain and snow skip all three. They have their own verbs: llueve (it rains, it's raining) and nieva (it snows, it's snowing). Right now, you'll usually hear está lloviendo or está nevando.
Teacher bit 🤓 Why hace? It literally means "it makes", so hace frío is "it makes cold". Strange in English, but Spanish isn't alone. Italian says fa freddo and French says il fait froid: same verb, same idea. The weather "makes" the heat or the cold.
Hace sol or está soleado? Noun or adjective
Here's where people mix things up. Lots of weather words come in pairs: a noun and an adjective. The noun goes with hace or hay. The adjective goes with está.
| Noun | Sentence with the noun | Adjective | Sentence with the adjective |
|---|---|---|---|
| el sol | Hace sol. | soleado | Está soleado. |
| las nubes | Hay nubes. | nublado | Está nublado. |
| la lluvia | Llueve. | lluvioso | Está lluvioso. |
| el frío | Hace frío. | frío | El agua está fría. |
So hace sol and está soleado say the same thing. Hace soleado or está sol don't work, because the verb and the word don't match.
Look at the last row too. Frío can be a noun (the cold) or an adjective (cold). For the weather, it's the noun: hace frío. For things you touch, like water or your coffee, it's the adjective: el café está frío ☕
Llover and nevar don't have a person doing them. So it's just llueve or nieva, with nothing in front. Not es lluvia, not él llueve. One word and you've said it.
If hay and está still feel slippery in general, not just for the weather, have a look at hay vs estar.
Yesterday, today and tomorrow
People don't only talk about the weather right now. They complain about yesterday and worry about the weekend. So you need the same verbs in other tenses:
| When | Example | In English |
|---|---|---|
| Today (Spain) | Hoy ha hecho mucho calor. | It's been really hot today. |
| Today, rain | Esta mañana ha llovido. | It rained this morning. |
| Yesterday | Ayer hizo un frío horrible. | It was horribly cold yesterday. |
| Yesterday, rain | Ayer llovió todo el día. | It rained all day yesterday. |
| Background in a story | Cuando salí de casa, hacía sol. | When I left the house, it was sunny. |
| Tomorrow | Mañana va a hacer viento. | It's going to be windy tomorrow. |
| Tomorrow, rain | Mañana va a llover. | It's going to rain tomorrow. |
A few things to notice:
- In Spain, today's weather uses the present perfect: ha hecho, ha llovido. More on that in Spanish past tenses explained.
- Hacía sol sets the scene for a story. Hizo sol tells you what the weather was like on a finished day.
- For tomorrow, va a + infinitive is the easiest way. There's a whole post on it: ir a + infinitive.
Check the forecast in Spanish every evening, for example on AEMET (Spain's weather service), and say tomorrow's weather out loud in one sentence: Mañana va a hacer sol, pero por la tarde va a llover. It takes ten seconds, and you practise the future every day.
Expressions you'll hear in Spain
Now the fun part. These are the ones you'll hear in Spain on a bad day, a hot day or a very wet one:
| Spanish | What it means | Use it when… |
|---|---|---|
| Hace un día de perros. | It's a horrible day. | It's cold, wet and windy |
| Hace un sol de justicia. | The sun is scorching. | It's midday in August |
| Me estoy asando. | I'm roasting. | You're far too hot |
| Hace un frío que no veas. | It's freezing. | You can't feel your fingers |
| Está chispeando. | It's spitting. / It's drizzling. | A few drops are falling |
| Caen chuzos de punta. | It's pouring down. | You'll get soaked in seconds |
| Está cayendo la del pulpo. | It's absolutely bucketing down. | Very informal, very Spain |
Un día de perros (literally "a dogs' day") is one of my favourites. And la del pulpo ("the octopus one")? There are a few stories about where it comes from, and none of them is very clear. You'll hear it anyway 🐙
Spain has lots of old sayings about the weather. Two you'll hear every year: En abril, aguas mil (in April, a thousand waters), because April is often rainy. And Hasta el cuarenta de mayo, no te quites el sayo: don't put away your coat until the "40th of May", meaning early June. People say it when someone's in a T-shirt too soon.
Hear it in a real conversation
Two friends planning a walk in the mountains for the weekend:
Spot the three verbs: hizo un sol de justicia, va a estar nublado and van a caer chuzos de punta. And the weather turned into a plan for the weekend. That's how weather chat usually goes in Spain. For more on those quick chats, see small talk in Spain.
Practise it this week
Describe today's weather three ways
Look out of the window and say one sentence with hace, one with hay and one with está. For example: Hace viento, hay muchas nubes y está gris.
Say what the weather was like yesterday
Before bed, say one sentence about yesterday's weather with hizo or llovió, and one about today with ha hecho or ha llovido: Ayer hizo frío, pero hoy ha hecho sol.
Use one expression from Spain
Pick one expression from the "Weather expressions from Spain" table, like hace un día de perros, and use it the next time the weather fits, even if you're only saying it to yourself.
Recap ✨
- Hace + noun for what you feel, hay + noun for what you see in the sky, está + adjective for how it looks.
- Rain and snow have their own verbs: llueve, nieva.
- Nouns go with hace or hay (hace sol), adjectives with está (está soleado).
- In Spain, today's weather uses ha hecho and ha llovido. Yesterday uses hizo and llovió.
- Expressions like hace un día de perros and caen chuzos de punta will make you sound very Spanish.
The weather is one of the everyday topics in my Roadmaps, with games, speaking prompts and cheat sheets so you can practise it step by step 🗺️
Now I'm curious 👀 What's the weather like where you are today? Tell me in Spanish, with hace, hay or está, and cuéntame in the comments!
Lucía ✨
Lucía · Linguist, translator, Spanish teacher and author of the Visual Spanish Grammar Book.
Come and learn Spanish with me and other aventureros like yourself at skool.com/learnspanish 🎉