Weather words...

Today, I will give Mikan-chan what she wants and talk about weather vocabulary. Ready? Here we go~!

weather = 天気

sunny = hare 晴れ

cloudy = kumori 曇り

rainy = ame 雨

snowy = yuki 雪

windy = kaze ga tsuyoi 風が強い

climate = 気候

hot = atsui 暑い

nice/mild = sugoshi-yasui 過ごしやすい

humid(& hot) = mushi-atsui 蒸し暑い

cool = suzushii 涼しい

warm(& nice) = atatakai 暖かい

cold = samui 寒い

There are many words like rainy and snowy which I never really used before I came to Japan but now I find myself teaching them to kids~!

It's raining.
It's snowing.

This seems more natural to me than:

It's rainy.
It's snowy.

But I would say "It's a snowy day" or "It's a rainy night". In the same way:

There's a storm(heavy rain & wind).

but

It was a dark and stormy night.

So I guess sunny, cloudy and windy are often used to say "It's _____" but most of the other -y adjective weather words are usually used to DESCRIBE a day, night or other noun.

When you watch a weather forecast(天気予報) you will hear many words like:

partly cloudy = a little bit cloudy, but usually sunny
partly sunny = a little bit sunny, but usually cloudy

mostly cloudy = lots of cloudy periods but sunny sometimes
mostly sunny = lots of sunny periods but cloudy sometimes

You might also hear things about:

tornado =トルネード

hurricanes =ハリケーン, 台風 in the Atlantic Ocean
typhoons = 台風, in the Pacific Ocean

hail =雹 hyou (over 5mm) 霰 arare (over 5mm)

thunder =雷 kaminari

lightning = 襲雷 shuurai

thunderstorm = 雷雨 raiu

freezing rain = rain that freezes when it reaches the ground, quite dangerous

Well that is it for now, I hope it helped Mikan-chan!

Phil