There are four common structures that enable you to talk about weather conditions. First, you can use verbs that express an action: llover, nevar, tronar, relampaguear, and granizar.
 Llueve. |
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| Nieva. |
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| Relampaguea. |
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| Truena. |
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| Graniza. |
You cannot use these verbs with any subject. The subject is understood as “it.” However, in Spanish, unlike English, the “it” is not directly expressed. For this reason, these verbs have only one form—third person singular.
The second structure you can use is with the verb hacer. Hacer is used with nouns that denote the weather conditions.
| Hace frío. |
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| Hace calor. |
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| Hace viento. |
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| Hace sol. |
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| Hace fresco. |
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| Hace buen tiempo. |
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| Hace mal tiempo. |
You can see that all the words following hace are nouns—wind, sun, cold, heat. Just as in the earlier expressions you learned, there is no subject directly expressed. “It” is understood, and the verb will always be used in the third person singular hace form. Generally, these expressions are used with conditions that you can directly physically experience. In other words, if it’s hot outside, you too will feel hot.
The third structure is with the verb haber, in the form you have already learned—hay. You also use hay followed by nouns, like in the case of hacer.
Usually, the nouns that are used with hay are visible to the eye, whereas most of the nouns used with hace are felt and not seen. The exception is sol which can be used with either.
Finally, you can use the verb estar. Estar is utilized to describe weather conditions that are considered by the speaker to be temporary or unusual in relation to the local norm.
For example, Está nublado can be conceived as a fleeting condition. In other words, it is cloudy right now, but it wasn’t an hour ago, nor will it be later. If you use the está expression, you are implying that the “normal” or “usual” weather conditions are other than what they are at the moment you are expressing them. You are thus marking an exception to the normal weather conditions.
You will note that with estar, you use adjectives, not nouns. For example the noun forms used with hace are calor, viento, whereas with estar, the corresponding adjectives are nublado, caliente, ventoso. In the above examples, you see that most often estar is used in its third person singular form está. It is used with the masculine singular form of the adjective, because it is assumed that you are talking about the weather (el clima) or the day (el día), both of which are masculine singular nouns. However, it can also be used with a specified subject, such as las noches. In this example, the adjective has to agree with the subject noches—feminine plural—frías.
Sometimes, the form of the noun and the form of the masculine singular adjective are the same; such is the case with frío and fresco.
Practice the vocabulary from this module using the Quizlet flashcards below.
