Weather is one of those topics that comes up constantly in French, whether you are making small talk, planning a trip, or trying to follow a forecast on a French television channel. It is also one of the areas where French works quite differently from English, in ways that catch a lot of learners off guard.
The most important thing to understand before diving into the vocabulary is that French does not say “it is hot” or “it is sunny” the way English does. Instead, French uses two constructions: il fait (literally “it makes”) for most general weather conditions, and il y a (literally “there is” or “there are”) for things you can see or point to. A third group of weather conditions uses their own impersonal verbs entirely.
Once you know those three patterns, everything else falls into place.
The Three Weather Patterns
Pattern 1: Il fait + adjective or noun
This is the most common pattern and covers the broadest range of conditions.
| French | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Il fait beau. | It’s nice out. / The weather is beautiful. |
| Il fait mauvais. | The weather is bad. |
| Il fait chaud. | It’s hot. |
| Il fait froid. | It’s cold. |
| Il fait frais. | It’s cool. |
| Il fait humide. | It’s humid. |
| Il fait du soleil. | It’s sunny. |
| Il fait du vent. | It’s windy. |
| Il fait du brouillard. | It’s foggy. |
| Il fait du tonnerre. | It’s thundering. |
| Il fait des éclairs. | There’s lightning. |
A note on chaud and froid: these same adjectives appear in the avoir idiomatic expressions for people (j’ai chaud, j’ai froid). The difference is the verb. Il fait froid describes the weather outside. J’ai froid means the person speaking is cold. Mixing these up is one of the most common French beginner errors.
Pattern 2: Il y a + noun
Use il y a when talking about something observable, like clouds in the sky, a haze, or gusts of wind.
| French | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Il y a des nuages. | It’s cloudy. (literally: there are clouds) |
| Il y a du brouillard. | It’s foggy. |
| Il y a de l’humidité. | It’s humid. |
| Il y a des rafales. | There are gusts of wind. |
| Il y a de la grêle. | There’s hail. |
| Il y a des giboulées. | There are sudden showers. |
You may have noticed that brouillard (fog) appears under both il fait and il y a. Both are correct and widely used. When in doubt, either works.
Pattern 3: Impersonal weather verbs
Some weather conditions use their own dedicated impersonal verbs. These work the same way as il pleut (it rains) — always in the third person singular with il, with no object.
| French | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Il pleut. | It’s raining. |
| Il pleut à verse. | It’s pouring. |
| Il neige. | It’s snowing. |
| Il gèle. | It’s freezing. |
| Il bruine. | It’s drizzling. |
| Il grêle. | It’s sleeting / hailing. |
| Il tonne. | It’s thundering. |
In informal spoken French, ça can replace il in all of these: ça pleut, ça neige, ça gèle. You will hear this regularly in conversation, though il remains the standard form in writing.
Il neige depuis ce matin. Les routes sont dangereuses. (“It has been snowing since this morning. The roads are dangerous.”)
Il bruine dehors. Prends quand même un parapluie. (“It’s drizzling out. Take an umbrella anyway.”)
Describing the Sky
These adjectives describe sky conditions and appear most often in weather reports.
| French | Meaning |
|---|---|
| ensoleillé(e) | sunny |
| nuageux / nuageuse | cloudy |
| peu nuageux | slightly cloudy |
| très nuageux | very cloudy |
| couvert(e) | overcast |
| brumeux / brumeuse | hazy, misty |
| variable | changeable |
| ciel clair | clear sky |
These come up constantly in la météo (the weather forecast). Le ciel est couvert (“The sky is overcast”) and ciel nuageux (“cloudy skies”) are two of the phrases you will hear most often.
French Weather Forecast Vocabulary
If you want to follow a French weather report, these are the terms that appear most frequently.
| French | Meaning | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| la météo | the weather forecast, the weather | Short for la météorologie |
| les prévisions météo (f.) | the weather forecast | Formal version used in written forecasts |
| la température | the temperature | |
| les précipitations (f.) | precipitation, rainfall | Technical term used in official reports |
| une averse | a shower, heavy rain | |
| un orage | a thunderstorm | |
| une tempête | a storm | More severe than un orage |
| le vent | the wind | |
| faible | weak, light | As in vent faible: light wind |
| modéré(e) | moderate | |
| fort(e) | strong | As in vent fort: strong wind |
| des rafales (f.) | gusts of wind | |
| la bruine | drizzle | |
| le verglas | black ice, sleet | Important word for winter driving |
| les intempéries (f.) | bad weather, harsh weather | Always plural in French |
Talking About Temperature
France (like most of the world) uses Celsius, so a forecast of 20 degrees is a pleasant 68°F, not a cold winter day. A few useful phrases:
Il fait quelle température ? (“What is the temperature?”)
Il fait vingt degrés. (“It’s twenty degrees.”)
Il fait moins dix. (“It’s ten below zero.”)
La température est tombée en dessous de zéro. (“The temperature fell below zero.”)
The Seasons in French
| French | Meaning |
|---|---|
| le printemps | spring |
| l’été (m.) | summer |
| l’automne (m.) | fall, autumn |
| l’hiver (m.) | winter |
To say “in” a particular season, use en for three of the four and au for spring specifically:
en hiver (“in winter”) / en été (“in summer”) / en automne (“in fall”) / au printemps (“in spring”)
The au with spring is one of those small irregularities that is worth memorizing as a fixed phrase rather than trying to reason through.
En été, il fait très chaud dans le sud de la France. (“In summer, it gets very hot in the south of France.”)
Au printemps, le temps est souvent variable avec des averses fréquentes. (“In spring, the weather is often changeable with frequent showers.”)
Asking About the Weather
| French | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Quel temps fait-il ? | What’s the weather like? |
| Quel temps fait-il à Paris ? | What’s the weather like in Paris? |
| Il fait quelle température ? | What is the temperature? |
| Quelle météo pour ce week-end ? | What’s the forecast for this weekend? |
| Est-ce qu’il va pleuvoir ? | Is it going to rain? |
Weather is one of the most natural topics for practicing conversational French, and most native speakers are happy to discuss it at length. If you want to move beyond vocabulary lists and start using these expressions in actual exchanges, a conversation session with a native French speaker is one of the best ways to make the vocabulary stick. A platform like italki makes it easy to find a tutor for that kind of focused practice.
