Weather in Spanish: hace, está, hay and how to give a forecast

The essential weather phrases

The question is ¿Qué tiempo hace? (What’s the weather like?), or ¿Qué tiempo hace hoy en Madrid? Remember that the h is always silent in Spanish: hace is “AH-theh” in most of Spain and “AH-seh” in Latin America, and hay sounds exactly like the English word “eye”.

The ll of llueve is a y sound for most speakers. In Argentina and Uruguay it sounds closer to the sh of “shop” or the s of “measure”. The v of viento and llueve is a soft b, made with both lips.

Hace, está or hay?

English says “it’s” for almost everything. Spanish chooses its verb according to the word that follows, and this is the heart of the topic.

1. Hace + noun. hace calor, hace frío, hace sol, hace viento. Literally “it makes heat”. Because calor and frío are nouns here, “very” is mucho: hace mucho calor, hace mucho frío. “Hace muy frío” is wrong.
2. Buen and mal are adjectives. So with tiempo, “very” is muy: hace muy buen tiempo, hace muy mal tiempo.
3. Está + adjective. For the state of the sky: está nublado, está despejado, está soleado.
4. Hay + noun. For things that are “there”: hay niebla (fog), hay nubes (clouds), hay tormenta (a storm), hay hielo (ice). Hay viento is also used alongside hace viento.
5. Weather verbs have no subject. Llueve. Nieva. There is no word for “it”. Llover changes o to ue (llueve), nevar changes e to ie (nieva). Others: graniza (it’s hailing), truena (it’s thundering), hiela (it’s freezing).

As in English, the simple present describes what usually happens and the continuous describes right now: En Galicia llueve mucho. (It rains a lot in Galicia.) but Mira, está lloviendo. (Look, it’s raining.)

In Spain you will often hear Hace bueno for “It’s nice out”. In much of Latin America, people ask ¿Cómo está el clima?, although in standard Spanish el clima means the climate and el tiempo the weather. Accept both, and teach ¿Qué tiempo hace?

Temperatures

Spain and Latin America use degrees Celsius. Spanish-language media in the United States, and everyday speech in Puerto Rico, mostly use Fahrenheit.

• Hace 25 grados. or Estamos a 25 grados.: It’s 25 degrees.
• Hace dos grados bajo cero. or Estamos a menos dos.: It’s minus two.
• la temperatura máxima, la mínima: the high, the low.
• ¿A cuántos grados estamos?: What’s the temperature?

Three words are easy to confuse, and the confusion can be embarrassing:

1. Hace calor is the weather. Hoy hace mucho calor.
2. Tengo calor is how you feel. “I’m hot” and “I’m cold” use tener: tengo calor, tengo frío.
3. Está caliente is for objects. La sopa está caliente. Said of a person, estoy caliente has a sexual meaning: make sure pupils never use it for the weather.

Forecasts: el pronóstico del tiempo

The forecast is el pronóstico del tiempo or la previsión; on Spanish TV the segment is simply called el tiempo. Spain’s weather agency, AEMET, issues yellow, orange and red warnings: aviso amarillo, aviso naranja, aviso rojo.

Mañana va a llover en el norte.Tomorrow it’s going to rain in the north.

El fin de semana hará sol y calor.At the weekend it will be sunny and hot.

Habrá tormentas por la tarde.There will be storms in the afternoon.

Ayer llovió y hacía mucho frío.Yesterday it rained and it was very cold.

Forecast vocabulary: chubascos (showers), intervalos nubosos (cloudy spells), cielo despejado (clear skies), una ola de calor (a heatwave), una ola de frío (a cold snap), temperaturas en descenso (falling temperatures).

For the past, pupils need two tenses: the preterite for an event (ayer llovió, nevó, hizo sol, hubo tormenta) and the imperfect for a description (hacía calor, estaba nublado, llovía). This is a classic GCSE writing point.

Typical mistakes of English-speaking learners

• “Es calor”, “es frío”: a word-for-word “it’s”. Weather takes hace.
• “Hace muy calor”: it must be hace mucho calor.
• “Hace nublado”: clouds take está: está nublado.
• “Estoy frío” or “estoy caliente”: feelings take tener: tengo frío, tengo calor.
• “Es lloviendo”: the continuous uses estar: está lloviendo.
• Pronouncing the h: hace and hay have a silent h. Pupils also mix up hay, ahí (there) and ¡ay! (ouch): hay and ay sound identical, and ahí differs only in its stress.

In class: a daily weather routine

Weather is ideal for the start of a lesson because the answer changes every day, so the same few structures are recycled with real meaning.

1. Show a city on a map with today’s real weather, for example Seville, sun, 31 °C.
2. Ask ¿Qué tiempo hace en Sevilla?
3. The class answers aloud: En Sevilla hace sol y hace calor. Estamos a 31 grados.
4. Reveal the model sentence so everyone can check hace, está or hay.
5. Finish with ¿Y aquí? In the UK, Aquí llueve and Está nublado get plenty of practice.

This is exactly what a daily routine does: a real question, a quick collective answer, and an immediate correction.

Other short activities: a forecaster role-play in front of a map of Spain; a weather-and-clothes game (Si llueve, llevo un paraguas.); comparing a city in Spain with one in Argentina the same day.

Adapting to your class

• A1One phrase: Hace sol.
• A2Two details and the temperature: Hace sol y estamos a 25 grados.
• B1Yesterday and tomorrow: Ayer llovió; mañana va a hacer frío.
• B2Explain and wish: En Buenos Aires hace fresco porque allí es primavera. Ojalá no llueva mañana.

At KS2, stick to hace sol, hace frío, llueve with gestures. At KS3, work on the three structures and mucho. At GCSE, weather is a natural way into the preterite, the imperfect and the future.

Frequently asked questions