Japanese Weather and Seasons Vocabulary: 天気, 四季, and the 降る/吹く Verbs

Japanese weather vocabulary covers the sky conditions you name daily (晴れ, 雨, 雪, 曇り, 風), the four seasons 春夏秋冬, temperature adjectives such as 暑い and 寒い, and seasonal terms such as 梅雨 and 台風 that appear in every forecast. These words sit at JLPT N5–N4. They earn constant use because weather remarks are among the most common conversation openers in Japanese.¹

Overview

Weather is small-talk fuel

天気 (てんき) is the everyday word for "weather." It covers short-term conditions and is far more conversational than the technical 気象.²

Weather remarks work as openers. いい天気ですね ("nice weather, isn't it") and 暑いですね／寒いですね ("hot/cold, isn't it") are set small-talk lines that learners use every day.¹

いい天気てんきです。¹
"It's a nice day."

天気てんきはいい？¹
"Is the weather nice?"

How this list is organized

This list pairs everyday native Japanese vocabulary (和語, wago) with its formal Sino-Japanese counterpart (漢語, kango) wherever one is in common use. The clearest pair is 天気 (everyday) versus 気象 (technical). 気象 is the term inside 気象庁 "Meteorological Agency" and 気象予報士 "certified forecaster."²

The 漢語 member belongs to news, science, and official forecasting. The 和語 member belongs to conversation. The split is a register difference, not a meaning swap: both describe atmospheric conditions, but 気象 frames them as physical phenomena.²

Sky conditions and weather nouns

The four everyday states

The four states you name most often are nouns: 晴れ (はれ) "clear, fair," 曇り (くもり) "cloudy," 雨 (あめ) "rain," and 雪 (ゆき) "snow." They predicate directly with です.¹

今日きょうは曇くもりです。¹
"It's cloudy today."

曇くもりの日ひです。¹
"It's a cloudy day."

雨 is read with the kun'yomi あめ. Its pitch accent separates it from the sound-alike 飴 "candy," covered in Good to know.³

雪ゆきが降ふっている。¹
"Snow is falling."

もう晴はれたよ。¹
"It's already cleared up."

Wind, thunder, and rough weather

Four nouns cover wind and rough weather: 風 (かぜ) "wind"; 雷 (かみなり) "thunder, lightning," an electrical-discharge phenomenon used in the standard collocation 雷が鳴る "thunder rumbles";⁴ 嵐 (あらし) "storm, tempest," a native 和語 for violently blowing wind, often with rain;⁵ and 台風 (たいふう) "typhoon."⁶

雷かみなりが鳴なったよ。¹
"The thunder rumbled."

台風 is the Sino-Japanese term you need for the news: a tropical cyclone over the northwest Pacific with sustained winds of at least 17.2 m/s, most frequent in August and September.⁶ It is a technical 気象庁 classification. 嵐 is a general everyday word and does not appear in official forecasting, which uses 暴風 and 暴風雨 instead.⁵

台風たいふうが来きてます。¹
"A typhoon's coming."

この秋あきは台風たいふうが多おおい。¹
"We have had lots of typhoons this fall."

Less-common but useful

Four more 和語 nouns round out the sky vocabulary: 霧 (きり) "fog, mist," 虹 (にじ) "rainbow," 氷 (こおり) "ice," and 霜 (しも) "frost."

天気 vs 気象: casual and formal "weather"

天気 (てんき) is the everyday, conversational "weather."² 気象 (きしょう) is "meteorological phenomenon," the technical term used in compounds and not often heard in conversation.²

The bridge term is 天気予報 (てんきよほう) "weather forecast," which a learner hears daily. The people and agency behind it carry 気象: 気象庁 (Meteorological Agency) and 気象予報士 (certified forecaster).²

Choosing 天気 or 気象 by register

Reaching for 気象 in casual speech sounds clinical, and 天気 in a scientific report sounds underspecified. The pair is a register selection, not a synonym swap.²

Weather verbs

降る: rain and snow "fall"

降る (ふる) is the intransitive verb for precipitation "falling." Japanese has no single one-word verb "to rain." Instead, the pattern is the noun 雨 + が + 降る.¹ The same verb serves snow: 雪が降る.¹

The subject (雨 or 雪) is marked with が, not を, because 降る is intransitive and takes no direct object.¹ The polite form is 降ります. The progressive 降っている means "it is raining or snowing."¹

雨あめが降ふっている。¹
"It is raining."

雪ゆきが降ふる。¹
"It's snowing."

１月いちがつは雪ゆきが降ふる。¹
"We have snow in January."

吹く: wind "blows"

吹く (ふく) is the intransitive verb for wind "blowing": 風が吹く.¹ It pairs with 降る as one of the two staple weather verbs. A strength modifier can slot in adverbially, as in 風が強く吹く "the wind blows hard."¹

風かぜが吹ふく。¹
"The wind blows."

凍いてつく北風きたかぜが吹ふいている。¹
"An icy north wind is blowing."

晴れる and 曇る: the sky "clears" and "clouds over"

晴れる (はれる) is an intransitive change-of-state verb: clouds or mist disappear, rain or snow stops, and the sky clears. It is derived from the noun 晴れ.⁷ Its counterpart is 曇る (くもる) "to cloud over, become overcast."¹

Contrast the noun 晴れ, a state (今日は晴れです), with the verb 晴れる, a transition (空が晴れた "the sky cleared").¹⁷ Japanese often states weather through these intransitive verbs and predicate nouns rather than through an i-adjective.

空そらが晴はれた。¹
"The sky has become clear."

曇くもってきた。¹
"It's getting cloudy."

空そらが曇くもってきた。¹
"The sky is becoming cloudy."

Putting it together: the が-pattern

One frame recurs across all of these: a weather noun, the particle が, and an intransitive verb. Confirmed instances are 雨が降る, 雪が降る, 風が吹く, and 雷が鳴る.¹⁴ The phenomenon is the grammatical subject, marked が, not the direct object marked with を.¹

The shape is easier to remember as a slot frame than as a list, so the collocation grid below shows which noun selects which verb.

The pattern is register-neutral. Only the verb's politeness ending shifts (降る against 降ります) between casual and polite speech.¹

Temperature and how it feels

The temperature adjectives

Four i-adjectives describe how temperature feels: 暑い (あつい) "hot, of weather";⁸ 寒い (さむい) "cold, of weather"; 暖かい (あたたかい) "warm, pleasantly mild";⁹ and 涼しい (すずしい) "cool." All four can predicate directly, as in 今日は涼しいです.¹

They form two natural pairs: 暑い against 寒い for the uncomfortable extremes, and 暖かい against 涼しい for the pleasant middle band. 暖かい is defined precisely as "neither too cold nor too hot, a pleasant temperature."⁹

暑あつい。¹
"It's hot."

寒さむい。¹
"It's cold."

今日きょうは涼すずしいです。¹
"It's cool today."

今日きょうは暖あたたかいな。¹
"It's warm today."

暑い vs 熱い, 寒い vs 冷たい

暑い (あつい) describes high ambient air temperature and weather: 気温が著しく高い.⁸ Its homophone 熱い, also read あつい, describes the heat of an object or substance felt by touch, such as hot soup or a hot bath. The dictionary separates meteorological, whole-body 暑い from direct-contact 熱い.⁸

寒い (さむい) describes ambient cold felt by the whole body. 冷たい (つめたい) describes low temperature felt by the skin, in part of the body, or from an object to the touch, such as cold water or cold hands.¹⁰ The usage note states the system directly: whole-body ambient temperature uses 暖かい／寒い, while partial or touch-felt temperature uses 温かい／冷たい.⁹¹⁰

The whole split reduces to one axis: ambient versus tactile, crossed with warm versus cold. A single grid captures all four kanji at once.

Hot and cold are chosen by feel, not by degree

暑い・熱い (あつい) both become "hot" in English, and 寒い・冷たい both become "cold." The Japanese choice is governed by ambient versus tactile feel, not by how high or low the temperature is.⁸¹⁰⁹

気温 vs 温度 and degrees

気温 (きおん) is specifically "air temperature"; 温度 (おんど) is "temperature" in general, of water, a body, or an object. News and forecasts report 気温.¹

Degrees use the counter 〜度 (ど). Below zero is 氷点下〜度 ("〜degrees below zero").¹

今いまの気温きおんは何度なんどですか？¹
"What's the temperature now?"

気温きおんが急きゅうに下さがった。¹
"The temperature has suddenly dropped."

気温きおんは氷点下ひょうてんか6度ろくどです。¹
"It's six degrees below zero."

The four seasons

春・夏・秋・冬

The four seasons are 春 (はる) "spring," 夏 (なつ) "summer," 秋 (あき) "autumn, fall," and 冬 (ふゆ) "winter."

The compound 春夏秋冬 is read しゅんかしゅうとう, "the four seasons through the year," using on'yomi. The Sino-Japanese noun 四季 (しき) means "the four seasons: spring, summer, autumn, winter."¹¹ 季節 (きせつ) is the general word for "season."¹

秋あきは涼すずしいです。¹
"Autumn is cool."

この冬ふゆは暖あたたかい。¹
"We are having a mild winter."

Seasonal feel and 旬

Typical seasonal feel maps onto the temperature adjectives: 春 mild (暖かい), 夏 hot (暑い), 秋 cool (涼しい), and 冬 cold (寒い). The 秋は涼しい and この冬は暖かい examples above show this pattern.¹⁹

旬 (しゅん) is "the season when a fish, vegetable, or fruit is at its best and most abundant."¹² This sense is a 国訓, a Japan-specific meaning added to a character whose original Chinese sense was a ten-day period, read じゅん.¹² It is the natural bridge to seasonal-food vocabulary.

旬 in food contexts is everyday, the じゅん reading is not

旬 in the food sense is common vocabulary, as in 旬の魚 "fish in season." The じゅん reading for the ten-day or decade sense is separate and far less frequent in daily speech.¹²

Rainy season and seasonal weather culture

梅雨: the rainy season

梅雨 (つゆ) is the early-summer rainy season, "the season of long rains around June, and the long rain that falls then."¹³ Typical timing is early June through early-to-mid July, as a recurring climatological norm.¹³

つゆ is an irregular reading for the characters 梅雨, literally "plum rain." The etymology is debated. One account ties it to the ripening of 梅 (plum) fruit in that period; another derives it from 黴雨 "mold rain," a homophone reflecting the humid, mildew-prone weather.¹³

The flower most commonly associated with the season in Japanese culture is 紫陽花 (あじさい) "hydrangea."

梅雨つゆに入はいった。¹
"The rainy season has set in."

もうすぐ梅雨入つゆいりだ。¹
"The rainy season is near at hand."

梅雨つゆはいつ明あけるの？¹
"When will the rainy season be over?"

台風 and typhoon season

台風 (たいふう) "typhoon" is a tropical cyclone over the northwest Pacific or South China Sea with sustained winds of at least 17.2 m/s. It is most frequent in August and September, the late summer and autumn.⁶

In forecasts, typhoons are commonly numbered through the year as 台風◯号. It helps to distinguish 台風, a technical classification, from 嵐, the general native word for a violent storm.⁶⁵

台風たいふうは去さった。¹
"The typhoon is gone."

台風たいふうが東京とうきょうを襲おそった。¹
"The typhoon hit Tokyo."

Talking about the weather

Small talk and asking

The set openers are いい天気ですね ("nice weather, isn't it") and 暑いですね／寒いですね ("hot/cold, isn't it"). The polite ね-tag invites agreement and makes the line work as small talk.¹

To ask, use 今日の天気は？ ("what's today's weather?") or 天気はいい？ ("is the weather nice?").¹

外そとは暑あつい？¹
"Is it hot outside?"

今朝けさは涼すずしいですね。¹
"It's cool this morning, isn't it?"

The forecast and 〜そう "looks like"

The appearance evidential 〜そう ("looks like…, appears that…") attaches to the verb 連用形 (the masu-stem): 降る becomes 降りそう "looks like it'll rain." On an i-adjective, it attaches to the stem with the final い dropped: 寒い becomes 寒そう "looks cold."¹⁴ For the verb 晴れる, the form is 晴れそう "looks like it'll clear up."¹

This is a common forecast pattern, as in 雨が降りそう "it looks like rain."¹

雨あめが降ふりそう。¹
"It looks like rain."

雪ゆきが降ふりそうだ。¹
"It looks like snow."

晴はれそうだ。¹
"The sky is likely to clear up."

Good to know

雨 (rain) and 飴 (candy) sound alike; pitch tells them apart

雨 and 飴 are both あめ. In isolation, only pitch accent separates them. 雨 is 頭高型, accent [1]: the pitch starts high on あ and drops, あ↘め.³ 飴 is 平板型, accent [0]: flat, with no drop inside the word, and a following particle stays level.³¹⁵

A mnemonic ties the two together: rain "falls" from high to low, matching the high-to-low pitch of 雨.³¹⁵

Why rain "falls" instead of "rains"

Japanese has no single intransitive verb meaning "to rain." The language uses the noun 雨 plus the falling verb 降る: 雨が降る.¹ The same noun-plus-降る frame extends to 雪が降る "it snows." This makes the が-pattern the regular system, not an exception.¹

梅雨 has two readings: つゆ everyday, ばいう formal

つゆ is the everyday reading.¹³ ばいう is the Sino-Japanese reading used in technical and news compounds, notably 梅雨前線 (ばいうぜんせん) "the seasonal rain front."¹³ Learners should recognize ばいう in forecasts even while saying つゆ in conversation.

暑い and 寒い are weather-only

These adjectives describe ambient air, not objects. Saying このスープは暑いです for "this soup is hot" is wrong because 暑い (あつい) describes high ambient air temperature. The heat of soup or any liquid felt by touch is 熱い (あつい):

このスープは熱あついです。⁸
"This soup is hot."

By the same split, a cold drink is 冷たい, not 寒い: ambient cold is 寒い, touch-felt cold is 冷たい.⁸¹⁰⁹

The 暖かい/寒い vs 温かい/冷たい grid as one rule

Whole-body, ambient temperature pairs 暖かい with 寒い. Partial, touch-felt or heartfelt temperature pairs 温かい with 冷たい. The dictionary states this as the normal kanji choice, so a single rule covers all four words.⁹¹⁰

See also

• Time, Date, and Calendar Vocabulary in Japanese
• Japanese Pitch-Accent Minimal Pairs: The Drill List You Must Hear
• Japanese Adjectives Overview: The Two Classes (い-形容詞 vs な-形容詞)
• Counters in Japanese: An Overview of 助数詞 (Josūshi)
• Japanese Food and Eating Vocabulary: Cooking Verbs, Tableware, and いただきます
• Japanese Colors Vocabulary: The い-Adjective vs. Noun Color Split
• Seasonality in Japanese Language and Life: Solar Terms, Seasonal Words, and Letter Greetings

References

Footnotes

1. Tatoeba Project. Multilingual sentence corpus. https://tatoeba.org/ (Individual CC-BY-licensed sentences cited by numeric sentence ID at point of use; verbatim.) ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶ ↩¹⁷ ↩¹⁸ ↩¹⁹ ↩²⁰ ↩²¹ ↩²² ↩²³ ↩²⁴ ↩²⁵ ↩²⁶ ↩²⁷ ↩²⁸ ↩²⁹ ↩³⁰ ↩³¹ ↩³² ↩³³ ↩³⁴ ↩³⁵ ↩³⁶ ↩³⁷ ↩³⁸ ↩³⁹ ↩⁴⁰ ↩⁴¹ ↩⁴² ↩⁴³ ↩⁴⁴ ↩⁴⁵ ↩⁴⁶ ↩⁴⁷ ↩⁴⁸ ↩⁴⁹ ↩⁵⁰ ↩⁵¹ ↩⁵² ↩⁵³ ↩⁵⁴ ↩⁵⁵ ↩⁵⁶ ↩⁵⁷ ↩⁵⁸ ↩⁵⁹ ↩⁶⁰ ↩⁶¹

2. 「気象」項, Wiktionary (English). https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%B0%97%E8%B1%A1 (Reading きしょう; "weather, meteorological phenomenon"; usage note: used in technical or scientific contexts, not often in conversation; derived terms 気象庁 kishō-chō "Meteorological Agency", 気象予報士 kishō-yohōshi "certified weather forecaster".) ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷

3. 「あめ」項, 『ウィクショナリー日本語版』(Japanese Wiktionary). https://ja.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E3%81%82%E3%82%81 (Tokyo accent: 雨（あめ, rain）あ↗め [áꜜmè] 頭高型 [1]; 飴（あめ, candy）あめ [àmé] 平板型 [0].) ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

4. 『デジタル大辞泉』「雷」項 (Weblio mirror). https://www.weblio.jp/content/%E9%9B%B7 (Reading かみなり; sense: an electrical-discharge phenomenon between charged clouds or between cloud and ground; the collocation「雷が鳴る」is given as standard usage.) ↩ ↩²

5. 『デジタル大辞泉』「嵐」項 (Weblio mirror). https://www.weblio.jp/content/%E5%B5%90 (Reading あらし; sense「荒く激しく吹く風」「暴風雨」; native 和語 attested in the Man'yōshū; not a 気象庁 technical forecasting term, where 暴風 / 暴風雨 are used instead.) ↩ ↩² ↩³

6. 『デジタル大辞泉』「台風」項 (Weblio mirror). https://www.weblio.jp/content/%E5%8F%B0%E9%A2%A8 (Reading たいふう; sense: a tropical cyclone forming over the northwest Pacific / South China Sea with maximum sustained winds of at least 17.2 m/s; most frequent in August–September.) ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

7. 『デジタル大辞泉』「晴れる」項 (Weblio mirror). https://www.weblio.jp/content/%E6%99%B4%E3%82%8C%E3%82%8B (Reading はれる; intransitive change-of-state verb「雲や霧などが消えてなくなる」「雨・雪などがやむ」; derived from the noun 晴れ.) ↩ ↩²

8. 『デジタル大辞泉』「暑い」項 (Weblio mirror). https://www.weblio.jp/content/%E6%9A%91%E3%81%84 (Reading あつい; core sense「気温が著しく高い」, i.e. ambient air temperature markedly high; contrasted with 熱い as a tactile/object heat term.) ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

9. 『デジタル大辞泉』「暖かい」項 (Weblio mirror). https://www.weblio.jp/content/%E6%9A%96%E3%81%8B%E3%81%84 (Reading あたたかい; core sense「寒すぎもせず、暑すぎもせず、程よい気温である」; usage note: 気温のように体全体で感じるあたたかさには「暖かい」（対義語「寒い」）、部分や心で感じるあたたかさには「温かい」（対義語「冷たい」）と書くのが普通。) ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷

10. 『デジタル大辞泉』「冷たい」項 (Weblio mirror). https://www.weblio.jp/content/%E5%86%B7%E3%81%9F%E3%81%84 (Reading つめたい; core sense「温度が低く感じられる」, temperature perceived as low; the warmth/coldness felt through the skin or in a part of the body, paired against ambient 寒い.) ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

11. 『デジタル大辞泉』「四季」項 (Weblio mirror). https://www.weblio.jp/content/%E5%9B%9B%E5%AD%A3 (Reading しき; sense「春・夏・秋・冬の四つの季節」.) ↩

12. 『デジタル大辞泉』「旬」項 (Weblio mirror). https://www.weblio.jp/content/%E6%97%AC (Reading しゅん for the food sense「魚介類・野菜・果物などの、最も味のよい出盛りの時期」; this culinary sense is a 国訓, a Japan-specific meaning added to the character; the time-period senses 10 days / 10 years read じゅん.) ↩ ↩² ↩³

13. 『デジタル大辞泉』「梅雨」項 (Weblio mirror). https://www.weblio.jp/content/%E6%A2%85%E9%9B%A8 (Readings つゆ and ばいう; sense「6月ころの長雨の時節。また、その時期に降る長雨」; timing「6月上旬から7月上・中旬にかけて」; etymology theories include 梅の実が熟する頃 and 黴雨 "moldy rain"; 梅雨前線（ばいうぜんせん）= the east-west stationary front along which low-pressure systems travel.) ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

14. 「そう」項, Wiktionary (English), auxiliary そう／そうだ (appearance/seeming sense). https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E3%81%9D%E3%81%86 (Attaches to the verb 連用形 / masu-stem: 降る → 降りそう; to the i-adjective stem with final い dropped: 美味しい → 美味しそう, by the same rule 寒い → 寒そう; classified as a 助動詞.) ↩

15. 「飴」項, Wiktionary (English). https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E9%A3%B4 (Tokyo accent for 飴 ame "candy": あめ [àmé], 平板型 [0]; a following particle stays low relative to the word, i.e. no accent drop within あめ.) ↩ ↩²