RECENT RAIN GUIDE
Did it rain yesterday?
Look up yesterday’s weather by ZIP code or city, then use the nearby station’s available rain evidence as a starting point—not as a property-level rain gauge.
Enter a U.S. ZIP code or city and state.
A quick rain-yesterday checklist
- Confirm the selected place, local date, reporting station and distance.
- Look for available precipitation amounts and present-weather reports.
- Check the observation times and coverage gaps before drawing a conclusion.
- Treat a missing amount as unknown—not as zero rain.
- Inspect the property or compare a local rain gauge when the exact location matters.
A station report can support a careful statement such as “the nearby station reported rain at 4:20 p.m.” It cannot establish that rain fell continuously, reached every part of a city or produced the same amount at your address.
Why YesterSky does not invent a daily rain total
METAR reports can include precipitation amounts for different reporting periods, such as one, three, six or 24 hours. Those periods can overlap each other or cross local midnight. Adding them together may double-count the same rain, so YesterSky keeps the evidence separate.
Present-weather codes add another kind of evidence: they can show that rain was reported at an observation time even when a clean amount is unavailable. The NOAA Aviation Weather Center METAR guide explains the source format. YesterSky’s weather methodology explains how the service preserves periods, trace reports, gaps and missing values.
Use nearby rain evidence with an on-site check
Rain can vary over a short distance, especially in scattered showers. Airport observations are useful context for a garden, landscape or worksite, but they do not measure soil moisture or prove how much water reached a particular plant bed.
For irrigation decisions, combine the station record with local evidence. Alabama Cooperative Extension recommends using a rain gauge, plant observations and soil-moisture evaluation. EPA WaterSense likewise describes irrigation decisions that combine weather data with landscape conditions.
If the question is legal, insurance-related or requires a certified climate record, use the appropriate official record provider rather than this recent-weather lookup.
Related recent-weather questions
See how to check past weather by ZIP code or city, whether it may have frozen last night, or whether it was windy yesterday. The complete recent weather guide brings the main limits together.