Weather
Learn 20 easy A1 English words for the weather - sunny, cloudy, windy, freezing, forecast - plus the it is raining rule, a story and a quiz.
The weather is the safest conversation in English and the most common small-talk question you will ever be asked. It also hides one grammar rule that learners almost always get wrong the first time – the little word it. Learn these 20 words, read the rule, and then come and see a year of weather in one place where nothing changes for five months and then everything does.
20 words to learn
The 20 words
/ˈweðə(r)/
Rain, sun, wind and so on. Uncountable – never weathers.
What is the weather like today?
/ˈsʌni/
With a lot of sun and no clouds.
It is sunny and twenty-eight degrees.
/ˈklaʊdi/
With many clouds and little sun.
It was grey and cloudy all day.
/reɪn/
Water falling from the sky. Also a verb: it is raining.
We need the rain this year.
/ˈʃaʊə(r)/
A short period of rain that stops quickly.
There will be a shower this afternoon.
/snəʊ/
Soft white water that falls when it is very cold.
The children had never seen snow.
/wɪnd/
Air that moves. Say WIND with a short i.
The wind was very strong last night.
/ˈwɪndi/
With a lot of wind.
It is too windy for the beach.
/stɔːm/
Very bad weather with strong wind and heavy rain.
The storm came at three in the morning.
/fɒɡ/
Thick cloud on the ground that you cannot see through.
There was fog on the road this morning.
/hɒt/
A very high temperature.
Forty degrees is too hot to walk.
/wɔːm/
Pleasantly hot, not too much.
It is warm in the sun but cold in the shade.
/kuːl/
Pleasantly cold, not too much.
The evenings are cool in September.
/kəʊld/
A low temperature.
Take a jacket – it is cold outside.
/ˈfriːzɪŋ/
Extremely cold, at or below zero.
It was freezing before sunrise.
/wet/
Covered in water. The opposite of dry.
My shoes are completely wet.
/draɪ/
With no water and no rain.
The air here is very dry in summer.
/ʌmˈbrelə/
You hold it over your head in the rain.
Take an umbrella – it is going to rain.
/dɪˈɡriː/
The unit for temperature. Written 30°.
It is thirty-four degrees today.
/ˈfɔːkɑːst/
What people say the weather will be tomorrow.
The forecast says rain on Friday.
Now read the story
Story · all 20 words
Five Months of Nothing
In England people talk about the weather because it changes four times before lunch. Where I grew up, we talk about it for the opposite reason: because for five months it does not change at all.
From May to September it is simply hot. Every single day is sunny, the air is completely dry, and the forecast on my phone shows the same small yellow circle all week – thirty-four degrees, and not one hour that is even slightly cloudy. After a while you stop looking at it.
Then October arrives and everything turns over in a single night. The first storm always comes in the dark. There is wind that moves the water tank on the roof, and by morning the streets are wet, half the city has forgotten how to drive, and everybody is on the phone to everybody else. Rain is an event here, not a fact.
November and December are cool in the day and properly cold after dark. In January it can be freezing before the sun comes up. Twice in my life there has been snow – once for six hours and once for two whole days – and both times the entire country stopped working and went outside to take photographs. On the mornings when there is fog in the valley you cannot see the building opposite, and the school buses arrive an hour late.
My favourite time is the end of March. It is warm but not hot, the days are windy in the good way that dries the washing in an hour, and there is one short shower in the afternoon that nobody minds at all. That is also the week when my mother finds the only umbrella in this house, uses it exactly once, puts it somewhere clever, and does not see it again until October.
English weather sentences need it. Many languages can say the equivalent of hot today, but English cannot start a sentence with nothing. The subject is always it:
✓ It is hot today. ✗ Is hot today. / Today hot.
✓ It is raining. ✗ Raining now. / The weather is rain.
That it does not mean anything. It is just there because English sentences need a subject.
Nouns become adjectives with -y. This is one of the most useful patterns at A1:
sun → sunny | cloud → cloudy | wind → windy | rain → rainy | fog → foggy | snow → snowy
The question everybody asks you. It is What is the weather like? – and the like is not optional. How is the weather? is possible but much less common. Answer with It is + adjective: It is warm and sunny.
The temperature scale, coldest to hottest: freezing → cold → cool → warm → hot.
What is falling: rain, shower, snow, storm, fog.
What the sky looks like: sunny, cloudy, windy.
How it feels: freezing, cold, cool, warm, hot, wet, dry.
The useful extras: weather, wind, umbrella, degree, forecast.
Look out of your window right now and say three sentences, each one starting with It is.
Now practise with the questions below.
Check your understanding
Answer the questions below. You will see instantly if you are right.
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