You can experience all types of weather in the UK – and sometimes all on the same day! Here’s our guide to English vocabulary about the weather – and ways that we talk about it.

Using it’s and there

We often use “It’s” as the subject of a sentence about weather:

With an adjective: It’s hot today.

With a verb: It’s raining again.

We can use “There” with a noun

There will be more snow later.
There’s a lot of fog about.

(It’s = it is)

Weather adjectives

Here are some common adjectives to describe weather.

sunny (when there’s a lot of sunshine): “It’s sunny today

hot: “I like hot weather.”

cold: “We have cold winters in the UK.”

mild = when the weather isn’t cold: “Spring is usually a mild season.”

fine = a word to mean “nice” when we describe the weather: “It will be a fine, sunny day.”

windy = when there’s a lot of wind: “Be careful when you go out. It’s very windy.”

wet = when it rains a lot: “The roads are wet. Take care.”

dry = when there’s no rain: “It’s going to be a long, dry summer.”

cloudy: “Today will be cloudy.”

overcast = when the sky is completely grey: “It’s overcast and depressing today.”

misty = when there is low cloud in the morning: “It’s quite misty this morning.”

foggy = when you can’t see in front of you because there is low clouds: “It’s foggy today in the mountains.”

frosty = when it freezes overnight and the grass, etc is icy and white: “It’s going to be frosty tomorrow morning.”

icy = when it freezes and water turns to ice: “Road conditions are icy this morning.”

stormy: “You can expect stormy weather in winter.”

Weather verbs

raining: “It’s raining again.”
“It always rains in summer here””

(“rainy” is also an adjective: “It’s a rainy day.”)

snowing: “It’s snowing hard. Let’s go and build a snowman!”
“It usually snows in the winter here.”

Weather nouns

rain: “We expect rain later.”

You can also say “light rain”, “heavy rain”, or “showers” (rain that only lasts for a few minutes.)

sunshine = “The weather forecast says there’ll be sunshine later.”

fog: “I don’t like driving in fog.”

mist: “There’s often some mist in the early morning.”

ice: “Be careful of the ice on the roads.”

snow: We had lots of snow last winter.

clouds = there are different types of clouds, such as rain clouds, snow clouds and storm clouds.

floods = when there’s too much rain and the fields or roads are covered in water: “Last winter there were lots of floods.”

The adjective is “flooded”: “All the roads are flooded.”

The verb is “to flood”: “The river flooded twice last year.”

storm = when you get heavy rain and strong winds, and maybe also thunder (noise) and lightning (electricity).

Other typical English weather vocabulary

strong wind = when there is a lot of force or power in the wind

cold snap = when it is cold for a period of time

dry spell = when it is dry for a period of time

sunny spell = when it is sunny for a period of time

partly cloudy = when there is both cloud and sunshine

a heatwave = when it is hotter than usual, for a long period of time

high temperatures (rising temperatures) = when it is hot

low temperatures (falling temperatures) = when it is cold

above / below freezing = when the temperature is above 0C or below 0C.
We also say “minus”. For example -2C is “minus two”.

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Now go to the next page to learn the grammar of superlatives: English Grammar: Superlatives