Weather in Spanish: Hace, Está, Hay + All the Vocab You Need

To talk about the weather in Spanish, you use three little patterns: hace + noun for general conditions (hace calor — it’s hot), está + adjective or gerund for current states (está nublado — it’s cloudy; está lloviendo — it’s raining), and hay + noun for things that are present (hay viento — it’s windy). The question that unlocks all of them is ¿Qué tiempo hace? (“keh tee-EM-poh AH-seh”) or, more casually in Mexico, ¿Cómo está el clima? — what’s the weather like?

Weather talk is the world’s favorite small talk, and Spanish is no exception — master these three patterns and you have an opener for every elevator, taxi, and market stall from Tijuana to Buenos Aires.

Why Three Patterns? (English Only Has One)

English throws “it’s” at everything: it’s hot, it’s cloudy, it’s raining, it’s windy. Spanish splits the job by what kind of word follows:

Pattern	Used with	Literal logic	Example
hace + noun	calor, frío, sol, viento, buen/mal tiempo	”it makes heat”	Hace frío. — It’s cold.
está + adjective / gerund	nublado, despejado, lloviendo, nevando	”the sky is [state]“	Está nublado. — It’s cloudy.
hay + noun	niebla, tormenta, nubes, hielo	”there is fog”	Hay niebla. — It’s foggy.

Yes, there’s overlap — hace viento and hay viento are both fine, and Mexicans say both. Don’t stress the edges; learn the classic pairings below and you’ll always sound natural. (Wondering why weather uses está and not es? Weather is a current state, not an identity — the full story is in our ser vs estar guide.)

Hace: The Workhorse

Hace (“AH-seh”) comes from hacer (to make/do), and for weather it’s always third person singular — no conjugating to worry about:

• Hace calor. (“AH-seh kah-LOR”) — It’s hot.
• Hace frío. (“FREE-oh”) — It’s cold.
• Hace sol. — It’s sunny.
• Hace viento. (“bee-EN-toh”) — It’s windy.
• Hace fresco. — It’s cool/crisp.
• Hace buen tiempo. — The weather’s nice.
• Hace mal tiempo. — The weather’s bad.

To crank up the intensity, use mucho — not muy, because calor and frío are nouns here:

• Hace mucho calor. — It’s really hot.
• Hace muchísimo frío. — It’s freezing.
• En Mérida hace un calorón. — In Mérida it’s brutally hot. (The -ón ending is a very Mexican intensifier.)

Está: States and Right-Now Weather

Está (“es-TAH”) covers the sky’s current condition (adjectives) and precipitation in progress (gerunds):

• Está nublado. (“noo-BLAH-doh”) — It’s cloudy.
• Está despejado. — It’s clear.
• Está soleado. — It’s sunny (out).
• Está lloviendo. (“yoh-vee-EN-doh”) — It’s raining.
• Está nevando. — It’s snowing.
• Está lloviznando. — It’s drizzling.

The plain verbs work too: llueve (it rains / it’s raining), nieva (it snows). Llueve mucho en septiembre (it rains a lot in September) states the pattern; está lloviendo reports what’s happening out the window right now.

And for temperature-as-number: La temperatura está a 30 grados or simply estamos a 30 grados — we’re at 30 degrees. (Celsius, always — 30°C is a hot day, not a cold one.)

Hay: What’s Out There

Hay (“AH-ee”) means “there is/are,” so it handles weather things you could point at:

• Hay niebla. (“nee-EH-blah”) — It’s foggy.
• Hay nubes. — There are clouds.
• Hay tormenta. — There’s a storm.
• Hay hielo en la carretera. (“YEH-loh”) — There’s ice on the road.
• Hay un arcoíris. (“ar-koh-EE-rees”) — There’s a rainbow.

Essential Weather Vocabulary

Spanish	Pronunciation	English
el clima / el tiempo	KLEE-mah / tee-EM-poh	weather
el pronóstico	proh-NOHS-tee-koh	forecast
la lluvia	YOO-vee-ah	rain
la nieve	nee-EH-veh	snow
el viento	bee-EN-toh	wind
la nube	NOO-beh	cloud
la tormenta	tor-MEN-tah	storm
el relámpago	reh-LAHM-pah-goh	lightning
el trueno	TRWEH-noh	thunder
el granizo	grah-NEE-soh	hail
la humedad	oo-meh-DAHD	humidity
el aguacero	ah-gwah-SEH-roh	downpour
la temporada de lluvias	—	rainy season

Vocabulary note: in Mexico and most of Latin America, el clima is the everyday word for weather (¿cómo está el clima?), while el tiempo — which also means “time” — is more common in Spain. Both are understood everywhere. And when it’s muggy, the phrase you want is está muy húmedo or hay mucha humedad.

Mini-Dialogues You Can Steal

At the taco stand:

— ¡Qué calor hace hoy! (It’s so hot today!) — Sí, hace muchísimo calor. Dicen que mañana llueve. (Yeah, it’s super hot. They say it’ll rain tomorrow.) — Ojalá. Ya necesitamos agua. (Hopefully. We need the rain.)

Planning a trip:

— ¿Cómo está el clima en Guadalajara? (What’s the weather like in Guadalajara?) — Está nublado y hace fresco. Lleva una chamarra. (It’s cloudy and cool. Bring a jacket.) — ¿Va a llover? (Is it going to rain?) — El pronóstico dice que sí, por la tarde. (The forecast says yes, in the afternoon.)

Small talk in the elevator:

— Está lloviendo fuertísimo, ¿no? (It’s raining so hard, right?) — Sí, y no traje paraguas. (Yeah, and I didn’t bring an umbrella.)

Note la chamarra — that’s Mexican for jacket (Spain says chaqueta), and el paraguas (“pah-RAH-gwahs”) is your umbrella — literally “stops-waters.”

The exclamation pattern from the first dialogue is gold for small talk: ¡Qué + noun! — ¡Qué frío! (So cold!), ¡Qué calorón! (So hot!), ¡Qué bonito día! (What a nice day!). Weather phrases like these are among the highest-value common Spanish phrases you can learn, and if you’ve got a trip coming up, fold them into our Spanish for travel guide for the full survival kit.

Talking About Weather in Other Tenses

You only need three extra forms to gossip about weather like a local:

• Future (going to): Va a llover. — It’s going to rain. Va a hacer frío mañana. — It’ll be cold tomorrow.
• Past (completed): Ayer llovió toda la noche. — Yesterday it rained all night. Hizo mucho calor el fin de semana. — It was really hot over the weekend.
• Past (ongoing): Estaba lloviendo cuando salí. — It was raining when I left.

Common Mistakes English Speakers Make

• Translating “I’m hot” literally. “Soy caliente” or “estoy caliente” does not mean you’re warm — it reads as “I’m attractive/aroused.” For your body temperature, use tener: Tengo calor (I’m hot), tengo frío (I’m cold).
• Using muy with hace calor. Calor is a noun, so it takes mucho: hace mucho calor, never “hace muy calor”.
• Saying “es lloviendo.” Progressive always uses estar: está lloviendo. And plain llueve works fine too.
• Mixing up es/está with weather adjectives. Current sky conditions take está: está nublado. Climate as a permanent trait takes ser: el clima de Cancún es húmedo (Cancún’s climate is humid).
• Forgetting Celsius. If a Mexican tells you estamos a 35 grados, don’t reach for a sweater — that’s 95°F.

FAQ

How do you ask “what’s the weather like?” in Spanish?

The textbook version is ¿Qué tiempo hace? In Mexico and most of Latin America you’ll more often hear ¿Cómo está el clima? or ¿Cómo está el tiempo? For the forecast, ask ¿Cuál es el pronóstico para mañana? (What’s the forecast for tomorrow?)

When do I use hace, está, or hay for weather?

Use hace with nouns for general conditions (hace calor, hace frío, hace sol), está with adjectives or gerunds for current states (está nublado, está lloviendo), and hay with things that are present (hay niebla, hay tormenta). Some overlap is normal — hace viento and hay viento are both correct.

What’s the difference between “hace calor” and “estoy caliente”?

Hace calor means the weather is hot. To say you feel hot, use tengo calor (literally “I have heat”). Estoy caliente means “I’m aroused” in most contexts — one of the classic false-friend traps in Spanish, so drill tengo calor / tengo frío early.

Is it “el clima” or “el tiempo” for weather?

Both. El tiempo is the traditional word (also means “time”), favored in Spain; el clima technically means “climate” but is the everyday word for weather across Mexico and Latin America. ¿Cómo está el clima? will sound perfectly natural anywhere in the Americas.

How do I say “it’s raining” vs “it rains” in Spanish?

Está lloviendo reports rain happening right now; llueve states a fact or habit (llueve mucho en verano — it rains a lot in summer). In casual speech llueve can cover both, so if in doubt, llueve is never wrong.