What is the weather vocabulary in French?

Ten essential weather words in French are: le soleil (sun), la pluie (rain), le vent (wind), le nuage (cloud), la neige (snow), l'orage (storm), le brouillard (fog), le thermomètre (thermometer), la tempête (tempest) and l'arc-en-ciel (rainbow).

How do you ask 'what's the weather like' in French?

You ask 'Quel temps fait-il ?' (kel ton fay-teel) — literally 'what weather does it make?'. In French the weather is something you 'make', not something it 'is'. Note that 'le temps' means both weather and time.

How do you say 'it's raining' in French?

'Il pleut' (eel pluh) means 'it's raining', from the verb pleuvoir. Similarly 'il neige' means 'it's snowing'. These are impersonal verbs that only ever exist in the 'il' form — you never say 'je pleus'.

What is the difference between 'il fait', 'il y a' and 'il pleut'?

Use 'il fait' + adjective for the general feel: il fait beau, il fait froid, il fait chaud. Use 'il y a' + noun when the weather is a thing you could point at: il y a du vent, il y a du brouillard, il y a des nuages. Use a dedicated verb where one exists: il pleut (it's raining), il neige (it's snowing).

What is the difference between 'un orage' and 'une tempête'?

'Un orage' is a thunderstorm — thunder, lightning, usually short. 'Une tempête' is a violent windstorm, a much bigger and more destructive weather event. A summer evening brings un orage; a storm that rips roofs off is une tempête.

Weather in French: The Vocabulary + the Sentence Patterns That Actually Work

The weather is the small talk of every country on earth, and in France it's the safest conversation you can have — with a neighbour, a taxi driver, a bakery queue. My new video gives you the ten words. But the words alone won't get you through that conversation, because French has three different ways of building a weather sentence and picking the wrong one is the single most common mistake learners make. Words first, then the pattern.

🎬 Le vocabulaire de la météo — the 10 weather words in French, said out loud. Repeat after me.

The 10 weather words in French

le soleil — sun (luh so-lay)
la pluie — rain (lah plwee)
le vent — wind (luh von)
le nuage — cloud (luh nwazh)
la neige — snow (lah nezh)
l'orage — (thunder)storm (lo-razh)
le brouillard — fog (luh broo-yar)
le thermomètre — thermometer (luh tair-mo-metr)
la tempête — tempest, violent storm (lah tom-pett)
l'arc-en-ciel — rainbow (lar-kon-syel) — literally "the arc in the sky"

Genders are mixed here, so learn each word with its article: masculine— le soleil, le vent, le nuage, l'orage, le brouillard, le thermomètre, l'arc-en-ciel; feminine — la pluie, la neige, la tempête.

The rule that matters: il fait / il y a / il pleut

Here's what the word list can't teach you. French does notsay "it is sunny". It has three separate patterns, and the one you choose depends on the word:

1. Il fait + adjective — the general feel

Literally "it makes". This is for the overall impression, and it's the answer to 90% of weather questions:

Il fait beau. — The weather's nice. (the single most useful weather sentence in French)
Il fait mauvais. — The weather's bad.
Il fait chaud. / Il fait froid. — It's hot. / It's cold.

2. Il y a + noun — when the weather is a thing

Literally "there is". Use it with the nouns from the list above — and note the little du / de la / des that has to come with them:

Il y a du soleil. — It's sunny. (there is sun)
Il y a du vent. — It's windy.
Il y a du brouillard. — It's foggy.
Il y a des nuages. — It's cloudy.
Il y a un orage. — There's a thunderstorm.

3. A dedicated verb — where French has one

Rain and snow are so central to life that they got their own verbs, and you must use them:

Il pleut. — It's raining. (from pleuvoir)
Il neige. — It's snowing. (from neiger)

These verbs only ever exist in the il form — that ilisn't "he", it's the empty "it" of English "it's raining". You will never conjugate je pleus. And there is no verb for wind or fog, which is exactly why pattern 2 exists: you can't say "il vente", you say il y a du vent.

Asking the question: Quel temps fait-il ?

"What's the weather like?" is Quel temps fait-il ? (kel ton fay-teel)— literally "what weather does it make?". Watch out for le temps: it means both weather and time. Context sorts it out — Quel temps fait-il ? is weather, Je n'ai pas le temps is time.

And la météo (the word in the video's title) is the forecast: the weather report on TV, the app on your phone. J'ai regardé la météo — I checked the forecast.

Orage vs tempête — not the same storm

English blurs these into one word. French doesn't:

un orage — a thunderstorm. Thunder (le tonnerre), lightning (les éclairs), usually over in an hour. The classic summer evening storm.
une tempête — a violent windstorm. Big, destructive, the kind that makes the news and takes roofs off.

So a rainy August evening in Paris is un orage, never une tempête.

Two idioms to sound like a local

Il pleut des cordes. — "It's raining ropes" = it's bucketing down (the French for "raining cats and dogs").
Après la pluie, le beau temps. — "After the rain, good weather" = every cloud has a silver lining. You'll hear this one used to comfort people.

Practise it out loud

Play the video again, repeat the ten words after me, then do this: look out of your window and describe what you see using all three patterns — il fait…, il y a…, il pleut. Sixty seconds a day and weather small talk becomes automatic. Next, take the animals in French, or browse every list in my French vocabulary hub.

Want to practise real conversation — the kind that starts with the weather and goes somewhere? I teach one-to-one online and you can book a free 30-minute trial lesson.