Weather in the past

Question

Hey,

Spanishdict says here:

http://www.spanishdict.com/translate/bueno (#4)

that to say "The weather was fine" you say "hizo buen tiempo". Everything I've ever read says that to describe the setting, give time, etc in the past you should use the imperfect, it doesn't matter if the action has been completed or not. Can someone please explain why the preterite is used in this instance?

Thanks

Answer 1

You may find this info useful: Weather in the past Talking about weather in the past

To talk about weather in the past, e.g. saying what the weather was like on your holiday, things get a little bit more tricky because Spanish has a number of past tenses. But as a rule of thumb1:

in most cases, it's OK to use the simple past (preterite); if you can add the phrase "at that moment", use the imperfect tense.

Here are the imperfect and simple past forms of various verbs used to describe the weather:

Simple past (preterite): - hizo calor la semana pasada (it was hot last week)

Imperfect: hacía sol cuando llegamos (it was hot (at that moment) when we arrived)