PRACTICAL WEATHER GUIDE
Yesterday’s weather: a guide to recent rain, cold and wind
Coming home after a few days away? Check yesterday’s weather or another recent date by ZIP code or city to see what a nearby station reported before you inspect a garden, property or worksite.
Enter a U.S. ZIP, supported Canadian postal code or city and state/province, then explore separate recent dates.
Choose a practical weather question
Each short guide explains what to look for, what the station record cannot prove and when to check another source or the property itself.
Rain & gardens
Check reported rain before you inspect a garden or landscape. A missing total does not mean zero rain, and station observations cannot tell you the soil moisture at your property. Follow the rain-yesterday checklist for a focused review.
How to use the rain observations
Reported periods may overlap, so YesterSky keeps them separate instead of inventing a property total. A rain report marks an observation time; it does not prove continuous rainfall.
Use the result to guide an on-site check, not to prescribe watering. Alabama Cooperative Extension recommends combining a rain gauge, plant observations and soil-moisture evaluation, while the EPA explains how irrigation decisions combine weather data with landscape conditions.
Cold nights
The displayed low and high are sampled station readings, not official daily extremes. They can flag nearby cold worth checking, but cannot establish frost, frozen pipes or damage at a property. Use the cold-night guide to review the two-date window.
Checking an overnight cold period
Use the overnight cold tool and choose the morning that ends the night. It checks one station's accepted temperature samples from 6 p.m. on the preceding evening to 6 a.m. that morning, in the selected place's local time. Before 6 a.m. locally, the default is the previous completed night; at or after 6 a.m., it is the night ending that morning. A completed period does not guarantee available or sufficient observations. Read the coverage assessment as well as the sampled low: gaps can prevent a reliable negative assessment. A station reading cannot establish frost or conditions at your property.
Wind & outdoor work
Reported wind and decoded gusts can add context before you inspect trees, fencing, roofing or loose materials. They do not prove the wind speed or timing of damage at a worksite. See how to read yesterday’s wind without overstating the record.
Saving wind context for later
Save the result link with its station, distance and date, and describe it as a nearby station report—not a property measurement or certified record. Stronger peak-wind remarks remain visible without being recast as decoded gusts.
About the observations
Some locations also offer an optional nearby water temperature summary from a suitable NOAA station for the selected day.
How far back can I look?
YesterSky focuses on recent weather. You can explore approximately the past 30 days; older observations may no longer be available.
What if a rainfall total isn’t available?
Weather stations sometimes report rain in overlapping periods, so adding those numbers together can give the wrong total. When YesterSky can’t establish a reliable daily amount, we show the available observations instead of guessing.
How far away is the station?
The result names the station and its straight-line distance from the selected locality reference point. Rain, cold and wind can vary over short distances, so compare this nearby evidence with what you find on site.
Want the technical details?
Read how YesterSky handles stations, rainfall and recent-weather records. Observations come from the NOAA Aviation Weather Center’s METAR service; forecasts and modeled values do not fill gaps.
Look up a ZIP code or city without an account or location permission.