Weather in Italian: Che Tempo Fa? (A1 Guide)

🔍 In short. Italian weather talk runs on three small engines: the impersonal verb fare (fa caldo, fa freddo, fa bel tempo), the construction c’è / ci sono for visible weather (c’è il sole, c’è la nebbia, ci sono nuvole), and a handful of stand-alone verbs that never need a subject (piove, nevica, grandina, tuona, lampeggia). The opening question is always the same: Che tempo fa? This A1 guide to italian weather walks through every pattern with real city examples from Padova to Cagliari, plus a dialogue, a cheat sheet, a mini-challenge, and a quiz.

Once you know how Italians actually talk about weather in italian, you stop translating from English in your head. It’s cold stops being è freddo and becomes fa freddo. It’s sunny becomes c’è il sole. It’s raining becomes one word: piove. The patterns repeat across every conversation, every forecast, every small talk moment at the bakery counter. Learn the patterns once, use them forever.

Why italians say fa freddo, not è freddo

Picture two friends meeting outside a panificio in Padova one January morning. Their breath fogs the air. The first thing said is not a greeting but a verdict on the cold: Madonna, fa un freddo! Not è freddo. The verb is fare, third person singular, no subject. Italian weather in italian works this way for a deep reason. Weather has no doer. The temperature is not something that is, it is something that the day does. So italians borrow the verb fare (literally to do or to make) and treat it as impersonal: fa caldo, fa freddo, fa bel tempo, fa brutto tempo.

This impersonal pattern is the most important rule of italian weather vocabulary, and it underlies every other italian weather construction below. English speakers want to say è caldo because it is hot sounds like a copular sentence in English. Italians never do. È caldo can only describe a specific thing (il caffè è caldo, the coffee is hot), never the weather itself. The same goes for italian weather verbs like piove, nevica, and grandina: they exist only in the third person singular, with no subject in sight. Treccani, in its entry on verbi atmosferici, notes that these verbs are quasi sempre impersonali, almost always impersonal. Knowing this one structural fact about italian weather saves you from a dozen English-to-italian translation errors.

Che tempo fa? The three weather questions

Italian gives you three reliable ways to ask about italian weather. Use any of them and a native will answer without hesitation. The most common is the title of this guide: Che tempo fa? Literally what weather does it do?, idiomatically what’s the weather like? A close second is Com’è il tempo?, which uses the verb essere and works exactly like how is the weather. The third, slightly more colloquial, is Che tempo c’è?, framed with c’è. All three are interchangeable in everyday italian weather small talk.

The questions stay simple but you can pin them to a place or a time. Che tempo fa a Lucca? asks about Lucca specifically. Che tempo fa oggi? asks about today. Stack them: Che tempo fa oggi a Modena? The word order is flexible. Put the city at the front for emphasis (A Cagliari che tempo fa?) or at the end as a calm afterthought. The questions also adapt to the future and the past with one verb swap.

• Che tempo fa? What’s the weather like? (general / today)
• Com’è il tempo? How’s the weather?
• Che tempo c’è? What’s the weather like? (colloquial)
• Che tempo farà domani? What will the weather be like tomorrow?
• Che tempo ha fatto ieri? What was the weather like yesterday?
• Com’erano le previsioni? How was the forecast?

Weather with fare: bel tempo, caldo, freddo

The verb fare is your italian weather workhorse. Almost every italian weather sentence about heat, cold, or general conditions opens with fa. Treat it as a fixed module: fa + adjective or noun, no subject. The most useful combinations belong to a small closed set you can memorise in one sitting. Use fa caldo when it’s hot, fa freddo when it’s cold, fa fresco for that pleasant in-between coolness of early autumn, fa bel tempo for nice weather in general, fa brutto tempo when the sky is grey and unsettled. For dramatic emphasis italians stretch the noun: fa un freddo!, fa un caldo!, leaving the listener to fill in the obvious terribile.

• Oggi a Lecce fa molto caldo.
  Today in Lecce it’s very hot.
• A Padova in gennaio fa freddo.
  In Padua in January it’s cold.
• Stamattina fa fresco, perfetto per una passeggiata.
  This morning it’s cool, perfect for a walk.
• Domenica fa bel tempo, andiamo al mare?
  On Sunday the weather is nice, shall we go to the sea?
• Che brutto tempo fa oggi.
  What awful weather today.
• Fa un freddo che non si respira.
  It’s so cold you can’t breathe.

The italian weather fare formula extends a little further than just temperature. Fa notte and fa buio describe nightfall (it gets dark), fa giorno describes dawn. None of these have a real subject: they describe what the day itself is doing. A WordReference thread on impersonal fare reminds us that this is one of the largest groups of italian impersonal verbs: weather conditions, alternation of light and dark, and the simple feeling of warmth or chill on your skin.

Weather with c’è and ci sono: sole, vento, nuvole

The second engine of italian weather is the c’è family. When italians describe weather you can see in the sky, they often switch from fare to c’è (there is) or ci sono (there are). The pattern is straightforward. Singular visible thing: c’è il sole, c’è la nebbia, c’è vento, c’è il temporale, c’è la luna. Plural visible things: ci sono le nuvole, ci sono i fulmini, ci sono trenta gradi. The article (il, la, le) is usually present, with one common exception: c’è vento often drops the article when describing a general windy condition.

• A Cagliari oggi c’è il sole e fa caldo.
  In Cagliari today it’s sunny and hot.
• Stamattina a Bologna c’è la nebbia, guida piano.
  This morning in Bologna it’s foggy, drive slowly.
• A Trieste c’è sempre vento, anche in agosto.
  In Trieste it’s always windy, even in August.
• Ci sono nuvole nere, sta arrivando un temporale.
  There are black clouds, a storm is coming.
• Stasera c’è la luna piena.
  Tonight there’s a full moon.
• Ci sono ventotto gradi all’ombra.
  It’s 28 degrees in the shade.

A common variant of italian weather small talk uses the verb tirare for wind. Tira vento means literally it pulls wind, and it sounds stronger than c’è vento. A WordReference discussion among native speakers makes the difference clear: c’è vento is neutral, tira vento suggests a vigorous, noticeable wind. When the wind is gusting hard enough to slam shutters in Trieste or sweep umbrellas off a Lucca terrace, tira vento is the natural choice. If you’re describing a mild breeze, stick with c’è un po’ di vento.

Stand-alone weather verbs: piove, nevica, grandina

The third engine of italian weather is a small set of single-word verbs that mean entire English sentences. Piove = it’s raining. Nevica = it’s snowing. Grandina = it’s hailing. Tuona = it’s thundering. Lampeggia = there’s lightning. Gela = it’s freezing. These verbs exist only in the third person singular: there is no io piovo or tu nevichi. They take no subject. Each one rolls a meteorological event into a single conjugated form. Treccani classifies them as verbi atmosferici (atmospheric verbs) and notes they are quasi sempre impersonali: almost always impersonal, used without a doer.

• Piove.
  It’s raining.
• Nevica forte, le strade sono bianche.
  It’s snowing hard, the streets are white.
• Stamattina ha grandinato per dieci minuti.
  This morning it hailed for ten minutes.
• Lampeggia e tuona, chiudi le finestre.
  There’s lightning and thunder, close the windows.
• Stanotte gela, copri le piante sul balcone.
  Tonight it’s freezing, cover the plants on the balcony.
• Piovigginava da un’ora, poi è uscito il sole.
  It had been drizzling for an hour, then the sun came out.

One small twist: in the past, italian weather verbs can pair with either essere or avere. You’ll see both ha piovuto and è piovuto in the same newspaper. Treccani notes that in modern italian both are perfectly normal, with no real difference in register or meaning. At A1 you don’t need to worry about this choice. Stick with ha piovuto, ha nevicato, ha grandinato, which sound natural in every context. The italian weather forecast you hear on TV typically uses ha: ieri ha piovuto su tutto il nord.

Weather adjectives: nuvoloso, soleggiato, ventoso

When you want to describe the day itself, italian weather adjectives let you do it cleanly. They work like a set of adjectives that work just like English ones: they agree in gender and number with the noun they modify, usually il tempo, la giornata, or il cielo. Nuvoloso means cloudy, soleggiato means sunny, sereno means clear, ventoso means windy, umido means humid, secco means dry, afoso means muggy. Mite describes a mild winter day. Rigido describes a harsh cold.

• Oggi è una giornata soleggiata.
  Today is a sunny day.
• Il cielo è nuvoloso ma non piove.
  The sky is cloudy but it’s not raining.
• A Verona il tempo è sereno.
  In Verona the weather is clear.
• È un agosto afoso, dormo male.
  It’s a muggy August, I sleep badly.
• L’inverno scorso è stato rigido in Trentino.
  Last winter was harsh in Trentino.
• Una giornata ventosa e fresca, perfetta per una vela.
  A windy, cool day, perfect for sailing.

Italian weather adjectives often sit after the noun (un cielo nuvoloso, una giornata soleggiata) but can move before for emphasis (una soleggiata mattina di aprile). Both positions are grammatical at A1; the post-noun position is the everyday default. When in doubt, place the adjective after.

Asking about tomorrow: the simple future for forecasts

Talking about tomorrow’s italian weather is straightforward: the italian weather forecast lives in the simple future tense. You don’t need to master all its conjugations at A1. You only need a handful of forms, always third person singular, that show up on every weather app and every evening news bulletin. Farà (it will do), sarà (it will be), pioverà (it will rain), nevicherà (it will snow), ci sarà (there will be). String them with domani (tomorrow), dopodomani (the day after tomorrow), la prossima settimana (next week), and you have a working forecast vocabulary.

• Domani farà bel tempo a Pisa.
  Tomorrow the weather will be nice in Pisa.
• Dopodomani pioverà su tutto il nord.
  The day after tomorrow it will rain on the whole north.
• Nel weekend non nevicherà.
  This weekend it won’t snow.
• Domani sarà nuvoloso ma non farà freddo.
  Tomorrow it’ll be cloudy but it won’t be cold.
• La prossima settimana ci sarà il sole.
  Next week it will be sunny.
• Domani forse pioverà, prendi l’ombrello.
  Tomorrow it may rain, take an umbrella.

If you’d rather not use the future tense yet, italian weather small talk happily accepts the present indicative with a future time marker. Domani piove is perfectly idiomatic: the domani tells the listener you mean tomorrow, even though piove looks like a present. Italians use this shortcut all the time when the future is close and certain. Stasera nevica, domani fa caldo, nel weekend c’è il sole: every one of these is natural italian.

Talking about temperature in italian weather

Italy uses the Celsius scale, and italian weather small talk often pivots to temperature: italian weather conversations switch into numbers the moment you ask qual è la temperatura? (what’s the temperature?) or quanti gradi sono? (how many degrees is it?). The answer uses ci sono plus the number plus gradi. Ci sono ventotto gradi = it’s 28 degrees. Ci sono cinque gradi sotto zero = it’s five below zero. For an approximate reading you can swap ci sono for the impersonal fa: fa trenta gradi, fa zero gradi. Both forms are common.

• Qual è la temperatura oggi?
  What’s the temperature today?
• Quanti gradi sono?
  How many degrees is it?
• Ci sono trenta gradi all’ombra.
  It’s 30 degrees in the shade.
• A Trieste in dicembre ci sono spesso due o tre gradi sotto zero.
  In Trieste in December it’s often two or three degrees below zero.
• Fa zero gradi, mettiti il piumino.
  It’s zero degrees, put on your puffer jacket.
• Ieri a Cagliari c’erano trentadue gradi alle tre del pomeriggio.
  Yesterday in Cagliari it was 32 degrees at three in the afternoon.

Italian weather cheat sheet

The full italian weather vocabulary fits onto one screen. Three columns: the verbs you’ll hear in conversation and forecasts, the adjectives that describe the day or the sky, the nouns for sky phenomena. Memorise this table and you can hold a conversation about italian weather from Padova to Palermo.

Dialogue at the edicola in Trieste

Caterina stops at the edicola near Piazza Unità d’Italia in Trieste to buy her morning newspaper. Niccolò, the newsagent, has been opening the same kiosk for twenty years and knows exactly how to read the Bora wind from the temperature drop alone. Notice how naturally they cycle through fa, c’è, tira, and the simple future. Every italian weather construction from this guide shows up at least once.

What to notice in the dialogue

• Ci sono due gradi: temperature with ci sono + number + gradi.
• Tira la Bora: tirare is the verb italians use for the wind itself, with or without an article.
• Farà bel tempo / sarà nuvoloso / non pioverà: three forecast verbs in the simple future, all in the third person singular.
• C’è il sole: the staple visible-weather formula. Always with the article il before sole.
• Forse nevica: present indicative with future meaning, made unambiguous by forse (perhaps) and lunedì sera.
• Ha fatto caldo: past-tense version of fa caldo, using avere. Italians use this constantly to comment on yesterday’s heat.

Mini-challenge

Italian weather vocabulary is one of the most rewarding A1 modules because every conversation in Italy starts here. You’ll use these patterns dozens of times a day, in cafés, on trains, at the edicola, at the doctor’s. Build the habit of replacing è with fa whenever you describe heat, cold, or general italian weather conditions, and watch your italian sound twice as natural. Pair this guide on italian weather with the quiz below to lock in the patterns, then revisit it after a week.

Test your understanding

Take the quiz below to test what you’ve learned about italian weather vocabulary.

Frequently asked questions

These questions about italian weather come from real conversations among Italian learners online and from native-speaker discussions on language forums. The atmospheric-verb pattern is also documented in the Treccani entry on verbi atmosferici.

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