6.7 – Talking about the Weather in the Past

Since we’ve learned the past tense, we can talk about past weather events as well. For the weather adverbs, you’ll just use the form byloS ‘it was’. The only exception is with zima (remember, it’s actually a fem. sg. noun), so you’ll use byla.

Včera bylo zataženo.

Yesterday (it) was overcast.

Předevčírem bylo vlhko.

The day before yesterday (it) was humid.

Včera byla zima.

It was cold yesterday.

With the verbs, you’ll put them in the past tense according to the rules we’ve learned. As before, they will be in the 3rd person. In many instances, it’ll just be the neuter singular (-o) of the l-form, since it’s just a generic it (i.e. it was raining, it was snowing), see below:

Minulý týden sněžilo.

Last week it snowed.

Včera pršelo.

It rained yesterday.

Dneska ráno mrzlo.

This morning it was freezing.

However, in other instances, there’s a clear noun that is the subject of the verb, in which case the past tense form has to agree in gender with that subject, cf.-

Dnes ráno foukal vítr. (foukal since vítr ‘wind’ is masculine)

This morning the wind was blowing.

Včera odpoledne svítilo slunce. (svítilo since slunce ‘sun’ is neuter)

Yesterday afternoon the sun was shining.

Předevčírem padal sníh. (padal since sníh is masculine)

It snowed (snow fell) the day before yesterday.

Image used in this document comes from this source.