Weather is the one small-talk subject that works everywhere in Finland, and there's a lot of it to discuss — a country that runs from mild Baltic summers to −30 °C in Lapland gives people plenty of material.
The thing that catches learners out isn't the vocabulary, it's the grammar. English says "it is raining," with an it that doesn't refer to anything. Finnish just uses a verb on its own: sataa is a complete sentence meaning "it's raining." No subject, no "to be," nothing else needed. Half this lesson is those one-word weather verbs.
Winter has a vocabulary of its own — snow, ice, frost and darkness get their own lesson.
The Basics
weather
sää
weather forecast
sääennuste
sky
taivas
air
ilma
sun
aurinko
cloud
pilvi
rain
sade
shower
kuuro
wind
tuuli
storm
myrsky
thunder
ukkonen
lightning
salama
fog
sumu
rainbow
sateenkaari
humidity
kosteus
Practice these words
sää
Quick note: ilma means both "air" and, in everyday speech, "weather." Kaunis ilma and kaunis sää both mean "lovely weather."
Weather Verbs — One Word, Whole Sentence
It's raining.
Sataa.
It's raining. (full form)
Sataa vettä.
It's snowing.
Sataa lunta.
It's windy.
Tuulee.
The sun is shining.
Aurinko paistaa.
It's thundering.
Ukkostaa.
It's clearing up.
Selkenee.
It's clouding over.
Pilvistyy.
It's freezing.
Pakastaa.
Practice these words
Sataa.
Quick notes:
- Sataa on its own means rain. Add lunta and it's snow, rakeita and it's hail. The verb doesn't change — only what's falling.
- These verbs have no subject at all. There's no Finnish word standing in for the English "it," and the sentence is complete without one.
- Tuulee is one of the shortest complete sentences in Finnish: "it's windy," in six letters.
Describing the Weather
sunny
aurinkoinen
cloudy
pilvinen
rainy
sateinen
windy
tuulinen
foggy
sumuinen
clear
selkeä
mild
leuto
damp
kostea
muggy, stuffy
tunkkainen
changeable
vaihteleva
Practice these words
aurinkoinen
Quick note: the -inen ending turns a weather noun into an adjective, exactly as English -y does: aurinko → aurinkoinen, pilvi → pilvinen, sade → sateinen, tuuli → tuulinen. Learn the noun and you get the adjective free. It is the same ending doing the work in the adjectives lesson.
Temperature
temperature
lämpötila
degree
aste
twenty degrees
kaksikymmentä astetta
plus five
plus viisi
minus ten
miinus kymmenen
above zero
nollan yläpuolella
below freezing
pakkasella
warm
lämmin
cool
viileä
Practice these words
lämpötila
Quick note: in speech Finns usually drop astetta. "It's minus twelve" is simply miinus kaksitoista, and in winter you'll hear the miinus dropped too — kaksitoista pakkasta, "twelve of frost." Counting them needs the numbers lesson.
Talking About It
What's the weather like?
Millainen sää on?
What's the forecast?
Mikä on sääennuste?
How many degrees is it?
Montako astetta on?
Lovely weather.
Kaunis sää.
Awful weather.
Kamala sää.
It's going to rain.
Tulee sadetta.
Do you need an umbrella?
Tarvitsetko sateenvarjon?
It's warm today.
Tänään on lämmin.
Practice these words
Millainen sää on?
What to Know About Finnish Weather Talk
The subjectless verbs are the pattern to take away. Sataa. Tuulee. Ukkostaa. Pakastaa. Each is a whole grammatical sentence with no subject, no auxiliary and nothing implied. English can't do this — "raining" alone isn't a sentence — and the habit of adding it is hard to break. If you find yourself hunting for the Finnish word for "it" in a weather sentence, the answer is that there isn't one and you don't need it.
The second thing is that Finnish weather vocabulary is unevenly distributed. Words for rain, sun and cloud are ordinary and few. Words for snow, ice and frost run into dozens, with fine distinctions between kinds of snow that English can only express with a phrase. That's not a curiosity about Finnish so much as a fact about Finland: languages grow vocabulary where their speakers need precision, and half the Finnish year is winter.
Third, a note on why this lesson matters socially. Finns don't do much small talk, but weather is the exception — it's the accepted, safe, unlimited topic, the one thing you can say to a stranger at a bus stop without it being odd. Kamala sää, said with feeling to someone standing in the rain beside you, is a complete and successful social interaction in Finland. Weather openers are the backbone of Finnish small talk.