I'd like to know what is the best way to express the situation when the weather changes very often in American English and in British English. For example: "The weather is changeble/irregular/fluid/capricious in spring here."
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4I'm not aware of any single best word. There are a lot of ways to express this concept. Words I would be tempted to use (in American English) are unpredictable, erratic, fickle, finicky, or even just crazy. Most of these have pretty negative connotations, though. You could also say something like variable or highly variable.– Jonathan S.Commented Jun 6, 2016 at 18:11
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"Unpredictable" is a way to describe weather which is also rather ironic in that meteorologists do their best to predict the weather as accurately and as long-term as they possibly can. :-)– Kristina LopezCommented Jun 6, 2016 at 18:42
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"Unsettled" is also used, though it generally refers to a relatively short period of variability vs a more established condition.– Hot LicksCommented Jun 6, 2016 at 21:34
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3Strictly speaking "changeable weather" is the preferable way (to spell it at least) :o)– JonLarbyCommented Jun 7, 2016 at 11:28
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How about just "weather"? There are only a handful of places where the weather is so consistent that you really need the qualifier. :)– BarmarCommented Jun 7, 2016 at 19:40
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1 Answer
I like the phrase "fickle weather" and use it myself for this exact purpose, but it's perhaps a bit more literary than saying "changeable weather", which also works well and will be understood by everyone (whereas 'fickle' is a lower frequency word than 'changeable' and it's not obvious what it means from its root). "Unpredictable weather" also works, but that technically doesn't mean it's changing a lot, just that you or the weather stations are having trouble forecasting what it's really going to be like.
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Fickle would be understood by any native US English speaker. Commented Jun 8, 2016 at 11:42