Weather and Seasons in Turkish (Hava Durumu): Words, Phrases and Small Talk

The weather in Turkish is hava (literally “air”), and a forecast is hava durumu or hava tahmini. Weather small talk works in Turkish just as it does in English: it’s a safe way to start a conversation with a neighbour, a taxi driver or a colleague. This guide gives you the words for sun, rain, snow and wind, how to give temperatures, the four seasons, and a few local weather terms you’ll hear on Turkish news.

Pronunciation hints are rough English approximations: uh is the Turkish ı, ö and ü are as in German, and ğ is silent and lengthens the vowel before it. The alphabet tool has audio for every letter.

Asking about the weather

Core weather vocabulary

Weather adjectives

Most weather adjectives are formed with the suffix -lı/-li/-lu/-lü (“with”), which follows four-way vowel harmony. The adjective suffixes guide covers this suffix in detail.

Describing what the weather is doing

Turkish uses verbs, mostly in the present continuous, where English uses “it’s …ing”. The key verb is yağmak (to fall from the sky), used for rain, snow and hail alike.

Temperature: hot, cold and how you feel

Temperatures are in Celsius: Bugün hava 30 derece (It’s 30 degrees today). Below zero you can say eksi beş derece (minus five) or sıfırın altında beş derece (five below zero). If numbers still slow you down, practice with the number converter.

The important distinction is between the weather and you:

The four seasons (dört mevsim)

Yazın and kışın are fixed adverbs; spring and autumn use the locative case. For specific seasons, no suffix is needed: bu yaz (this summer), geçen kış (last winter), gelecek bahar (next spring). To pair seasons with months, see days of the week and months in Turkish.

Talking about weather in other tenses

• Forecasts use the future tense: Yarın kar yağacak. (It will snow tomorrow.) Hafta sonu hava güzel olacak. (The weather will be nice at the weekend.)
• General facts about climate use the aorist: Antalya’da kışın pek kar yağmaz. (It hardly ever snows in Antalya in winter.) Karadeniz’de çok yağmur yağar. (It rains a lot on the Black Sea coast.)
• Possibility: Akşam yağmur yağabilir. (It might rain this evening.)
• Plans that depend on weather use the conditional: Yağmur yağarsa evde kalırız. (If it rains, we’ll stay at home.)

Local weather words worth knowing

Türkiye’s climate varies a lot by region: humid summers on the coasts, a rainy Black Sea coast, and cold, snowy winters on the eastern plateau. A few traditional terms come up often in conversation and on the news:

• Lodos – a warm, gusty south-westerly wind. In İstanbul it can disrupt ferry services.
• Poyraz – a cold north-easterly wind.
• Pastırma yazı – a short warm spell in autumn, similar to an “Indian summer”.
• Cemre – in folk tradition, warmth “falls” first into the air, then the water, then the earth in late winter, signalling that spring is coming. You’ll hear cemre düştü (the cemre has fallen).

Dialogue: a phone call between friends

Deniz: Alo, Emma! İstanbul’da hava nasıl? Deniz: Hello, Emma! What’s the weather like in İstanbul?

Emma: Berbat! Sabahtan beri yağmur yağıyor, bir de lodos var. Emma: Awful! It’s been raining since morning, and there’s a lodos wind too.

Deniz: Vapurlar çalışıyor mu? Deniz: Are the ferries running?

Emma: Bazı seferler iptal oldu. Ankara’da durum ne? Emma: Some services were cancelled. What’s it like in Ankara?

Deniz: Güneşli ama çok soğuk. Sabah eksi iki dereceydi, çok üşüdüm. Deniz: Sunny but very cold. It was minus two this morning, I got really cold.

Emma: Hafta sonu ne olacak? Bakmadım. Emma: What’s happening at the weekend? I haven’t checked.

Deniz: Hava durumuna göre İstanbul’da hava açacak. Yağmur yağmazsa sahilde yürüyelim mi? Deniz: According to the forecast, it’ll clear up in İstanbul. If it doesn’t rain, shall we walk along the seafront?

Emma: Olur, ama şemsiyemi yine de alırım! Emma: Sure, but I’ll still bring my umbrella!

Common mistakes

• “Ben soğuğum” for “I’m cold”. Soğuk describes things, not your body. Say Üşüyorum or Üşüdüm.
• Translating “it” literally. There’s no dummy subject: say Yağmur yağıyor, not “O yağmur yapıyor”.
• “Kışta” and “yazda”. For “in winter” and “in summer” use kışın and yazın.
• Mixing up kapalı and açık. Hava kapalı means overcast, not “the weather is closed”. Hava açık means the sky is clear.
• Writing a plural after a number. Yirmi derece, not “yirmi dereceler”.

Mini-quiz

1. How do you say “It’s snowing”?
2. Translate: Hava kapalı ama yağmur yağmıyor.
3. You’re shivering at a bus stop. What do you say about yourself?
4. What is “in winter” in Turkish?
5. Give the Turkish for “windy” and “foggy”.
6. Translate: “If the weather is nice, we’ll go to the beach.” (beach = plaj)

Answers

1. Kar yağıyor.
2. It’s overcast, but it isn’t raining.
3. Üşüyorum (or Çok üşüdüm).
4. Kışın.
5. Rüzgârlı, sisli.
6. Hava güzel olursa plaja gideriz.

Next steps

Weather sentences are great practice for verb tenses because the same verbs come back every day. Try conjugating yağmak and üşümek in the verb conjugator, then review the future tense so you can follow a forecast.