French language Q&A Forum

I am confused by the weather lessons, and the rule above in particular. 

All of the examples of “il y a” in this lesson include adjectives, not nouns.  “Sunny,” “windy” etc. are adjectives. 

On the other hand, it seems to have been established that “il fait” is often not appropriate when there is an adjective, because it sounds childish.  So, that also does not fit the rule.

From this lesson, it seems like the rule never holds true. 

Suggestions:

1.  My suggestion is to remove that rule from this lesson altogether, because it is creating confusion.  If you remove it, we are left with the general rule that “To talk about the weather in French, you will use Il y a + du / de la / de l' / des  + noun.”   Maybe it makes sense to remove the noun reference there too, and replace it with [weather condition]? 

2.  If you click the link to the lesson about “il fait + [adjective]” it states that “to talk about the weather in French, you will use the fixed expression “il fait + [adjective]”.  This statement is directly contradictory to the lesson that says  “To talk about the weather in French, you will use ‘Il y a…’”  They have the same lead-in phrase, but come to different conclusions.

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For my own use, I’m trying to decide if I should be using “il y a” all the time with weather, and avoiding “il fait” altogether…

OR

Using “il fait” only when I am talking about the quality of the weather (good or bad) or the temperature (hot or cold), but using “il y a” at all other times.