Scheda: Tempo atmosferico
Italy has a moderate Mediterranean climate: clima mediterraneo. The weather (= tempo atmosferico) in Italy can be quite varied given its peculiar geography, but you do not need to use words such as tornadi, uragani and tifoni (tornadoes, hurricanes, and typhoons) to talk about weather conditions in Italy. The following lists provide you with basic vocabulary and phrases to talk about the weather in Italian.
- To talk about the weather in general, you can either use “fa” or “è”:
Question: Che tempo fa?
How’s the weather?
Risposte: Fa bello.
It’s nice weather.
Fa brutto.
It’s bad weather.
Fa caldo (freddo, fresco).
It’s hot (cold, cool).
Domanda: Com’è il tempo?
What’s the weather like?
Risposte: (Il tempo) È bello.
It’s nice. / The weather is nice.
(Il tempo) È brutto.
It’s bad weather.
- To talk about particular weather conditions, you can either use “c’è” or “è”:
c’è afa c’è il sole it’s muggy it’s sunny c’è foschia c’è (la) nebbia it’s hazy it’s foggy c’è vento or tira vento it’s windy it’s windy è sereno è nuvoloso/coperto it’s clear it’s cloudy
- You can also use some common colloquialisms:
Fa un freddo cane! Literally: It’s dog cold. Meaning: It’s extremely cold. C’è un caldo da morire! Literally: It’s hot to die. Meaning: It’s terribly hot.
- If you’re talking about weather events such as rain (= la pioggia), snow (= la neve), and hail (= la grandine), you just need to put the verb in the 3rd person singular:
piove (piovere) nevica (nevicare) grandina (grandinare) it’s raining it’s snowing it’s hailing it rains it snows it hails
