La nature et le temps qu'il fait

French weather runs on faire, used impersonally, and getting this wrong is one of the more audible learner errors because the weather comes up every single day.

The pattern

• Il fait chaud. It is hot.
• Il fait froid. It is cold.
• Il fait beau. The weather is nice.
• Il fait mauvais. The weather is bad.

The il refers to nothing at all. It is there because the sentence needs a subject, exactly as it is in the English it is raining.

Why not il est chaud

Il est chaud describes a specific thing that is hot to the touch. Said about the day, it is not quite ungrammatical, just wrong in a way that sounds like a translation. Worse, il est chaud about a person means something else entirely, and you will not enjoy discovering what.

Rain and snow have their own verbs

Il pleut, il neige. These are complete sentences and need no adjective. The nouns exist too, la pluie and la neige, but the verbs are what you reach for.

Il y a du vent for wind, il y a du soleil for sun. French switches to il y a when the weather is a thing that is present rather than a quality of the day.

Temps again

Temps is the weather and also time, which by now you have met. Quel temps fait-il ? is what is the weather like. Combien de temps ? is how long. Nobody is ever confused by this in practice, because the surrounding words settle it immediately.

Frais is not just cold

Frais is fresh and also cool, in the pleasant sense: il fait frais ce matin. Applied to food it means fresh rather than chilled. Froid is properly cold. The difference between il fait frais and il fait froid is the difference between reaching for a jacket and reaching for a coat.