How do you say it's sunny in French?

Il fait du soleil or il y a du soleil. Both are heard constantly; il y a du soleil is the safer choice in writing, since some editors object to il fait with a noun. What you can't do is drop the article: il fait soleil is regional at best.

Why does French use faire for the weather?

Because the construction is impersonal and there's nothing for être to describe. The il is an empty placeholder, and faire supplies the sense of conditions being produced. The same empty subject turns up in il est trois heures and il y a du monde.

What's the difference between il fait chaud and j'ai chaud?

Il fait chaud is about the air: it's hot out. J'ai chaud is about you: I feel hot. And c'est chaud is about an object: careful, that's hot. All three exist and they aren't interchangeable.

How do you ask about the weather in French?

Quel temps fait-il ? is the standard question, and il fait quel temps ? is its spoken version. You can also ask about a place: quel temps fait-il à Lyon ? The answer normally starts with il fait: il fait beau, il fait un temps magnifique.

How do I talk about yesterday's weather?

Put the same verb in a past tense. Faire gives il a fait beau or il faisait beau, and the weather verbs behave normally too: il a plu toute la journée, il neigeait quand je suis sorti. The choice between the two pasts works exactly as it does elsewhere.

French grammar · Beginner

Il Fait Beau, Il Fait Du Soleil: Talking About the Weather in French

Written by Camille Laurent, Lead French Curriculum Editor · Reviewed May 2026

French describes the weather with the impersonal il fait: il fait beau, il fait froid, il fait du soleil. Faire covers adjectives and temperatures, il y a covers things you can see like fog and clouds, and rain and snow have verbs of their own: il pleut, il neige.

Il fait beau, mais il fait du vent sur la côte.

The weather's nice, but it's windy on the coast.

What it is

English says it's cold, using the verb to be. French says il fait froid, literally it makes cold, because the weather is treated as something being produced rather than something being. The il refers to nothing at all: it's a placeholder subject, the same one used for il est trois heures.

Quel temps fait-il ? Il fait doux, mais il y a du vent. — What's the weather like? It's mild, but it's windy.

How to spot it

Look at what comes after the verb. An adjective or a temperature takes il fait. A noun with an article usually takes il y a, though vent, soleil, and brouillard accept both. Rain and snow have their own verbs and need nothing else.

Il fait frais ce matin. — It's chilly this morning.
Il fait moins trois. — It's minus three.
Il y a du brouillard. — It's foggy.
Il pleut depuis hier. — It's been raining since yesterday.

Nothing agrees in these sentences. Il fait chaud never becomes il fait chaude, because the adjective isn't describing anything with a gender.

Weather Expressions with Il Fait Quick Reference

The three weather structures

English	French	Structure
It's nice out	Il fait beau.	il fait + adjective
It's cold	Il fait froid.	il fait + adjective
It's 25 degrees	Il fait 25 degrés.	il fait + temperature
It's sunny	Il fait du soleil.	il fait + partitive noun
It's windy	Il fait du vent.	il fait + partitive noun
It's foggy	Il y a du brouillard.	il y a + partitive noun
It's raining	Il pleut.	weather verb on its own
It's snowing	Il neige.	weather verb on its own

Common Weather Expressions with Il Fait Examples in French

The weather sentences you'll hear every day:

Good Weather

Il fait beau aujourd'hui.: The weather's lovely today.
Il fait doux pour un mois de mars.: It's mild for March.
Il fait bon dehors.: It's pleasant outside.
Il fait du soleil depuis ce matin.: It's been sunny since this morning.

Il fait bon means comfortably warm and is a compliment about the temperature rather than the sky.

Bad Weather

Il fait mauvais, reste à la maison.: The weather's bad, stay home.
Il fait gris et humide.: It's grey and damp.
Il pleut sans arrêt.: It's raining non-stop.
Il a neigé toute la nuit.: It snowed all night.

Il fait mauvais is the standard opposite of il fait beau, and it covers rain, wind, and cold at once.

Things in the Air

Il fait du vent sur la plage.: It's windy on the beach.
Il y a des nuages à l'ouest.: There are clouds to the west.
Il y a de l'orage dans l'air.: There's a storm brewing.
Il y a du verglas sur la route.: There's black ice on the road.

The partitive is obligatory: these nouns name a substance in an unspecified quantity, so du, de la, or de l' has to be there.

Asking and Reacting

Quel temps fait-il ?: What's the weather like?
Il fait quel temps chez vous ?: What's the weather like where you are?
Quelle chaleur !: It's so hot!
On gèle ici !: It's freezing in here!

Temps means both weather and time, so quel temps fait-il ? and quelle heure est-il ? are worth learning as a pair.

How Il Fait Works for Weather

One empty subject, three complement patterns, and one distinction that catches every English speaker at least once.

The Il Stands for Nothing

This is an impersonal construction: there is no thing that is doing the making. The il can't be replaced by a noun, can't be questioned with qui, and never changes to elle.

Il fait nuit à cinq heures en décembre.

It gets dark at five in December.

Impersonal il, always singular.

Faire Takes an Adjective With No Agreement

Because there's no noun involved, the adjective stays in its base form. Beau, chaud, froid, frais, doux, humide, lourd, and gris all appear unchanged, no matter who's talking or about where.

Il fait lourd avant l'orage.

It's muggy before a storm.

il fait chaud, never il fait chaude.

Nouns Need a Partitive Article

Vent, soleil, brouillard, and brume are nouns, so they need du, de la, or de l' in front of them. Leaving the article out, as in il fait vent, is the single most common error in this area.

Il fait du brouillard dans la vallée.

It's foggy in the valley.

il fait + du / de la / de l' + noun.

Rain and Snow Are Verbs, Not Complements

Pleuvoir, neiger, geler, and grêler exist only in the third person singular, and they carry the whole meaning by themselves. They conjugate across tenses like any other verb: il a plu, il pleuvait, il pleuvra.

Il pleuvait quand nous sommes partis.

It was raining when we left.

il pleut, il neige, il gèle.

The Weather and the Person Use Different Verbs

Il fait chaud describes the air. J'ai chaud describes you. C'est chaud describes an object you've touched. Swapping them produces sentences that are grammatical but say something entirely different.

Il fait froid dehors et j'ai froid aux mains.

It's cold outside and my hands are cold.

il fait = air, j'ai = me, c'est = the thing.

Common Mistakes with Weather Expressions with Il Fait

Incorrect: Il est froid aujourd'hui. — It's cold today.

Correct: Il fait froid aujourd'hui. — It's cold today.

Il est froid would describe a specific thing as being cold. Weather conditions are produced rather than described, so French uses faire.

Incorrect: Il fait vent ce soir. — It's windy this evening.

Correct: Il fait du vent ce soir. — It's windy this evening.

Vent is a noun, and French nouns need an article. The partitive du is what supplies the sense of an unspecified amount of wind.

Incorrect: Il fait pluie depuis ce matin. — It's been raining since this morning.

Correct: Il pleut depuis ce matin. — It's been raining since this morning.

Rain has its own verb, so no auxiliary is needed. Il y a de la pluie is also possible, but il fait pluie is not French.

Incorrect: Je suis chaud, ouvre la fenêtre. — I'm hot, open the window.

Correct: J'ai chaud, ouvre la fenêtre. — I'm hot, open the window.

People have heat rather than being it, exactly as with j'ai faim and j'ai soif. Je suis chaud means something quite different in colloquial French.

Temperature, Forecasts, and Fixed Expressions

The weather comes up constantly in small talk, and these three sets of phrases carry most of it.

Degrees and temperature

Faire also states the temperature, with the number standing where an adjective would. Negative temperatures use moins.

Il fait vingt-cinq degrés à l'ombre.: It's twenty-five degrees in the shade.
Il fait moins deux ce matin.: It's minus two this morning.
Il fait une chaleur insupportable.: The heat is unbearable.
La température va baisser demain.: The temperature is going to drop tomorrow.

Degrees are Celsius throughout the French-speaking world, so il fait trente is hot, not mild.

The forecast

La météo is both the forecast and the weather service. Predictions use the near future or the conditional, and the sky itself becomes the subject.

La météo annonce de la pluie pour dimanche.: The forecast says rain for Sunday.
Le ciel est couvert.: The sky is overcast.
Il devrait faire beau demain.: It should be nice tomorrow.
Des averses sont prévues dans l'après-midi.: Showers are expected in the afternoon.

Notice that le ciel takes être, because it's a real subject with a real quality. Only the empty il uses faire.

Weather idioms

French has a rich set of fixed phrases for extreme weather, and they're used far more often than their English equivalents.

Il fait un temps de chien.: The weather is foul.
Il fait un froid de canard.: It's bitterly cold.
Il pleut des cordes.: It's pouring down.
Il fait un soleil de plomb.: The sun is beating down.

None of these can be worked out from the individual words, so they're worth learning whole.

Weather Expressions with Il Fait FAQs

How do you say it's sunny in French?: Il fait du soleil or il y a du soleil. Both are heard constantly; il y a du soleil is the safer choice in writing, since some editors object to il fait with a noun. What you can't do is drop the article: il fait soleil is regional at best.
Why does French use faire for the weather?: Because the construction is impersonal and there's nothing for être to describe. The il is an empty placeholder, and faire supplies the sense of conditions being produced. The same empty subject turns up in il est trois heures and il y a du monde.
What's the difference between il fait chaud and j'ai chaud?: Il fait chaud is about the air: it's hot out. J'ai chaud is about you: I feel hot. And c'est chaud is about an object: careful, that's hot. All three exist and they aren't interchangeable.
How do you ask about the weather in French?: Quel temps fait-il ? is the standard question, and il fait quel temps ? is its spoken version. You can also ask about a place: quel temps fait-il à Lyon ? The answer normally starts with il fait: il fait beau, il fait un temps magnifique.
How do I talk about yesterday's weather?: Put the same verb in a past tense. Faire gives il a fait beau or il faisait beau, and the weather verbs behave normally too: il a plu toute la journée, il neigeait quand je suis sorti. The choice between the two pasts works exactly as it does elsewhere.