Weather in Romanian

In Brief

Romanian weather expressions normally have no spoken equivalent of English it. Use either e (“is”) plus a weather word—e cald, e frig, e soare—or a weather verb on its own: plouă (“it is raining”) and ninge (“it is snowing”). Do not add el or ea before these expressions.

Overview

Talking about the weather is an A1 skill that quickly becomes useful: you can decide what to wear, understand a forecast, or make easy conversation. A small set of Romanian expressions covers most everyday situations, and many can be expanded simply by adding a time, place, or degree word: Astăzi plouă (“It is raining today”), La munte e frig (“It is cold in the mountains”), or Ninge mult (“It is snowing a lot”).

The central idea is the impersonal construction (a sentence that describes a situation without naming a person or thing that performs the action). English weather sentences require the “dummy” subject it: “it is cold,” “it rains.” That it does not refer to anything, but English grammar still requires it. Romanian usually leaves that slot empty: E frig and Plouă are complete sentences.

This topic builds on the present tense of a fi (“to be”). In everyday Romanian, este (“is”) is very often shortened to e. Alongside this pattern, Romanian has dedicated weather verbs such as a ploua (“to rain”) and a ninge (“to snow”). Learn the present forms first; later sections show how the same expressions work in forecasts and other tenses.

How It Works

Pattern 1: e + a weather word

Use third-person singular e or its full form este to describe the general conditions. E is ordinary and extremely common; it is not careless Romanian.

Pattern	Romanian	Natural English
e + cald	E cald.	It is warm / hot.
e + frig	E frig.	It is cold.
e + răcoare	E răcoare.	It is cool / chilly.
e + soare	E soare.	It is sunny.
e + vânt	E vânt.	It is windy.
e + ceață	E ceață.	It is foggy.
e + senin	E senin.	It is clear.
e + înnorat	E înnorat.	It is cloudy.

English often uses an adjective where Romanian uses a noun: soare means “sun,” vânt means “wind,” and ceață means “fog.” Translate the complete expression naturally rather than word for word. E soare is “It is sunny,” not “It is sun.”

In the basic impersonal expressions e cald and e frig, the weather word stays in the same form. There is no noun for it to agree with. This contrasts with a sentence that explicitly names vremea (“the weather”):

Impersonal statement	Statement with vremea
E cald. — It is warm.	Vremea e caldă. — The weather is warm.
E frumos afară. — It is nice outside.	Vremea e frumoasă. — The weather is nice.

In the second column, caldă and frumoasă agree with the feminine noun vremea. Agreement means changing a describing word to match the gender and number of its noun. Beginners can avoid this extra step by using the shorter impersonal pattern.

Pattern 2: a weather verb by itself

Several weather conditions are expressed with a verb. The infinitive (the dictionary form of a verb) includes a in Romanian, but the form used in a present weather statement does not.

Dictionary form	Present weather form	English
a ploua	plouă	it rains / it is raining
a ninge	ninge	it snows / it is snowing
a tuna	tună	it thunders / it is thundering
a fulgera	fulgeră	there is lightning

These forms are third-person singular, but there is no ordinary subject. Say Plouă, not El plouă. Romanian also does not need a special continuous form equivalent to English “is raining.” Depending on the context, plouă can mean “it rains” or “it is raining”:

• Toamna plouă des. — It rains often in autumn.
• Acum plouă. — It is raining now.

Adding time, place, and intensity

The core expression does not change when you add more information. Time and place phrases can often go either before or after it; placing one first makes it the topic of the sentence.

Function	Useful Romanian	Example
time	azi / astăzi (today)	Astăzi e soare.
time	acum (now)	Acum plouă.
time	mâine (tomorrow)	Mâine va ninge.
season	iarna (in winter)	Iarna e frig.
place	afară (outside)	Afară e cald.
place	aici (here)	Aici e ceață.
place	la București (in Bucharest)	La București plouă.
degree	foarte (very)	E foarte frig.
quantity	mult (a lot)	Ninge mult.
frequency	des (often)	Plouă des.

Notice that foarte naturally intensifies cald, frig, and similar descriptions, while mult commonly describes how much it rains or snows. Plouă foarte is incomplete in ordinary Romanian; say plouă mult or plouă foarte mult.

Asking about the weather

The most general question is Cum e vremea? (“What is the weather like?”). Here cum literally asks “how,” so the word-for-word shape differs from English. You can add a place or time:

• Cum e vremea azi? — What is the weather like today?
• Cum e vremea la Cluj? — What is the weather like in Cluj?
• Cum e afară? — What is it like outside?
• Plouă? — Is it raining?
• E frig? — Is it cold?

Romanian can turn a statement into a yes/no question through intonation in speech and a question mark in writing. No equivalent of English do is added: Plouă?, not a separate “does” construction.

Temperature

To state the temperature, Romanian uses sunt (“are”), because grade (“degrees”) is plural:

• Sunt douăzeci de grade. — It is twenty degrees.
• Afară sunt cinci grade. — It is five degrees outside.
• Sunt minus trei grade. — It is minus three degrees.

With numbers from 20 upward, Romanian normally places de before grade: douăzeci de grade, treizeci și două de grade. For a beginner, the most important contrast is E cald but Sunt douăzeci de grade.

Examples in Context

Romanian	English	Note
Afară e frig.	It is cold outside.	Basic e + frig pattern
Astăzi plouă.	It is raining today.	No subject pronoun
E soare și e cald.	It is sunny and warm.	Two descriptions joined by și (“and”)
Iarna ninge mult.	In winter it snows a lot.	A season plus mult
Dimineața e ceață.	It is foggy in the morning.	Literally, “there is fog”
La mare e vânt.	It is windy at the seaside.	Place phrase first
Acum plouă foarte mult.	It is raining very heavily now.	foarte mult intensifies the verb
Vara e foarte cald aici.	It is very hot here in summer.	General seasonal condition
Cum e vremea la Brașov?	What is the weather like in Brașov?	General weather question
Nu plouă, dar e înnorat.	It is not raining, but it is cloudy.	Negation with nu
Tună și fulgeră.	There is thunder and lightning.	Two impersonal weather verbs
Afară sunt zece grade.	It is ten degrees outside.	Plural sunt with grade
Mâine va fi frig.	It will be cold tomorrow.	Simple future forecast
Cred că o să plouă.	I think it is going to rain.	Common spoken forecast

Common Mistakes

Adding an English-style subject

• Wrong: El plouă astăzi.
• Right: Astăzi plouă.
• Why: English needs the dummy subject it, but Romanian weather verbs do not take el (“he/it”) or ea (“she/it”).

Translating “sunny” word for word

• Wrong: Este solar afară.
• Right: Afară e soare.
• Why: Everyday Romanian normally says e soare, literally “there is sun.” Solar belongs to expressions such as energie solară (“solar energy”), not the basic weather phrase.

Making cald agree when there is no noun

• Wrong: E caldă afară.
• Right: E cald afară.
• Why: In the impersonal expression, use fixed cald. Use feminine caldă only when it describes a feminine noun: Vremea e caldă.

Using the wrong intensifier with a weather verb

• Wrong: Plouă foarte.
• Right: Plouă mult. / Plouă foarte mult.
• Why: Foarte needs another word after it here. Use mult for “a lot” and foarte mult for “very heavily.”

Using singular e with degrees

• Wrong: E douăzeci de grade.
• Right: Sunt douăzeci de grade.
• Why: Grade is plural, so standard Romanian uses plural sunt (“are”), even though natural English says “it is.”

Copying English question structure

• Wrong: Ce este vremea?
• Right: Cum e vremea?
• Why: Romanian asks “How is the weather?” with cum, not “What is the weather?” with ce.

Usage Notes

Both e and este mean “is.” E is the normal short form in conversation and is also common in informal writing. Este can sound more deliberate and appears often in formal speech, news, or careful written descriptions. There is no difference in weather meaning between E frig and Este frig.

Romanian uses Celsius in daily life. A statement such as Sunt treizeci de grade will normally be understood as 30°C. The phrase la umbră means “in the shade,” and forecasts may use temperatura maximă (“the maximum temperature”) and temperatura minimă (“the minimum temperature”).

English divides weather descriptions among “it is,” “there is,” and verb forms: “it is windy,” “there is fog,” “it is raining.” Romanian packages these ideas differently. It is more reliable to learn each complete chunk—e vânt, e ceață, plouă—than to choose words by translating the English grammar first.

For seasons used in general statements, Romanian commonly uses forms such as iarna (“in winter”), vara (“in summer”), primăvara (“in spring”), and toamna (“in autumn”): Toamna plouă des. These forms can also mean “the winter,” “the summer,” and so on; context supplies the natural English translation.

Beyond the Basics / Advanced Use

You do not need to master these patterns at A1, but they explain forms you will soon meet in conversation and forecasts.

Past and future weather

Weather verbs and a fi can move into other tenses like ordinary verbs:

Time	Romanian	English
completed past	Ieri a plouat.	It rained yesterday.
ongoing/background past	Ningea când am plecat.	It was snowing when I left.
future	Mâine va ploua.	It will rain tomorrow.
common spoken future	O să fie frig.	It is going to be cold.

The form a plouat presents the rain as a completed past event. Ploua or ningea presents weather as ongoing or as background to another event. This distinction belongs to later study of Romanian past tenses.

Change, probability, and more precise weather

Instead of only naming a condition, Romanian can describe a change: Se răcește (“It is getting colder”), Se încălzește (“It is getting warmer”), and Se înseninează (“It is clearing up”). The small word se is part of these verb patterns; learn each expression as a unit until you study reflexive and pronominal verbs in detail.

Forecasts often avoid absolute certainty:

• Probabil va ploua. — It will probably rain.
• E posibil să ningă. — It may snow / It is possible that it will snow.
• Sunt șanse de ploaie. — There is a chance of rain.

In să ningă, the verb is in the subjunctive (a verb form often used after ideas such as possibility, desire, or necessity). This is a later grammar topic; at first, treat e posibil să... as a useful forecast frame.

You may also encounter more specific verbs and phrases: burnițează (“it is drizzling”), plouă torențial (“it is raining heavily”), bate vântul (“the wind is blowing”), and cerul este acoperit (“the sky is overcast”). These enrich the basic system but do not replace the core A1 expressions.

Practice Tips

1. Build two sets of chunks. Put e cald, e frig, e soare, e vânt in one set and plouă, ninge, tună, fulgeră in another. This helps you remember which expressions use e and which are verbs by themselves.
2. Give a ten-second daily report. Look outside and say three sentences, for example: Astăzi e înnorat. E frig și bate vântul. Nu plouă. Reusing real conditions makes the phrases easier to retrieve.
3. Compare today, yesterday, and tomorrow. Begin with the present, then add one later-tense sentence when ready: Azi e soare. Ieri a plouat. Mâine o să fie cald. Listen for these forms in Romanian weather forecasts.

Related Concepts

• Prerequisite: Verb “A Fi” (To Be) — learn este/e and the other present-tense forms used in descriptions.