Writers Write Is All About Writing
Writers Write Is All About Writing
80 Weather Expressions Cheat Sheet

80 Weather Expressions Cheat Sheet

The weather can take on so many functions in our writing. It can even add conflict or act on its own! Do you know the weather plays a big part in our daily language? This article will prove it with an 80 weather expressions cheat sheet.

80 Weather Expressions Cheat Sheet

Weather is the way we all experience the force of the elements. The way we deal with these forces says a lot about our character. In stories, talking about the weather can perform all kinds of tasks: it can be a conversation starter, a backdrop for our characters, add some sensual detail, and even be a force with a mind of its own. For more, please read ‘7 Ways to Write About The Weather’.

When we go back in history and look at how much of our daily life depended on the weather, it’s clear why the weather is part of our religious beliefs, our folklore, and yes, even our language. There are so many words and phrases, idioms, and sayings about the weather. This article presents a cheat sheet which names many of them.

How to use this cheat sheet

Reading and hopefully working with cheat sheets such as this ultimately refines your craft as a writer. It increases your diction, your active vocabulary, and the amount of ‘showing’ in your stories (if you’d like advice on describing the weather, here’s an article for you).

All of the entries in this cheat sheet are figurative language. The minute we use one of them, we create an image in our readers’ minds. That alone is good because the more we engage our readers, the longer we’ll keep them reading our story.

Just an example. Imagine your hero gets all the positive phrases linked to the sun and heat. Your villain, however, gets all the words relating to darkness and disaster. You’ll have the elements in your language on top of describing what your main characters do. Just by the choice of your words. Here we go! 

80 Weather Expressions  

Weather Expression / Phrase
Rain to rain down on somebody (sb)
to rain on sb’s parade
to be right as rain
to chase rainbows
come rain or shine
it never rains but it pours
it’s raining cats and dogs
to take a rain check
to save/keep money for a rainy day
Cloud a cloud hanging over so
a cloud over the horizon
to be on cloud nine
to be under a cloud
every cloud has a silver lining
to have your head in the clouds
to live in cloud-cuckoo land
Fog to be in a fog
  to be able to fog a mirror
Wind second wind
to sail against the wind
to sail close to the wind
a straw in the wind
to take/knock the wind out of sb’s sails
to throw caution to the wind/winds
to see which way the wind blows
Storm any port in a storm
to cook up/talk up a storm
perfect storm
to ride (out) the storm
a storm in a teacup
to take sb/something (sth) by storm
the calm / the lull before the storm
to weather the storm
to storm in/out of a place
Thunderstorm quick as lightning
blood and thunder
to have a face like thunder/look like thunder
lightning never strikes twice in the same place
like a streak of lightning
like (greased) lightning
to steal sb’s thunder
bolt from the blue
to make a bolt for sth/ it
Temperature to be as cold as ice
to be cold comfort
to be hot on sth
like a cat on a hot tin roof
to be hot on sb’s track/trail
to be hot stuff
to be too hot to handle
to blow hot and cold
hot air
hot under the collar
to be in hot pursuit
to leave sb cold
to leave sb out in the cold
Snow to be as white as snow
  to be pure as the driven snow
to be snowed under with sth
Sun life isn’t all sunshine and rainbows
to make hay while the sun shines
to think the sun shines out of sb’s backside
to take a shine to sb
a place in the sun
one’s moment in the sun
a ray of sunshine
to ride off into the sunset
to go to bed with the sun
everything under the sun
sun-drenched
to be walking on sunshine
to catch some sun
to fly too close to the sun
the sun sets on sb
Weather to be/feel under the weather
brass monkey weather
fair-weather friend
in all weathers
to keep a weather eye on sb/sth
make heavy weather of sth

The Last Word

I hope you’re no longer in the fog about the weather. These 80 expressions belong to the most colourful examples of our language (and I haven’t even listed all the proverbs and sayings!). Have fun using them!

Susanne Bennett

By Susanne Bennett.

Susanne  is a German-American writer who is a journalist by trade and a writer by heart. After years of working at German public radio and an online news portal, she has decided to accept challenges by Deadlines for Writers. Currently she is writing her first novel with them. She is known for overweight purses and carrying a novel everywhere. Follow her on Facebook.

More Posts From Susanne

  1. 7 Ways To Write About The Weather
  2. 7 Steps To Celebrate ‘The End’
  3. How To Write A Cosy Mystery
  4. Punctuation For Poets
  5. The Powerhouse Of Writing 6: Colons, Semicolons, & Dashes
  6. The Powerhouse Of Writing 5: Quotation Marks
  7. The Powerhouse Of Writing 4: The Question Mark
  8. The Powerhouse of Writing 3: The Exclamation Mark
  9. The Powerhouse of Writing 2: The Comma
  10. The Powerhouse Of Writing 1: The Full Stop

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Posted on: 13th December 2022
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