Today
Has it rained enough in Porto?
Three showers have passed over in three weeks. Every one wet the leaves and was gone by lunchtime — none of it reached the roots.
Porto has had 20.7mm of rain in the last 30 days. A normal October here brings 177.5mm, so that is about 12% of what the ground usually gets — and the driest October in 30 years was 10mm.
Rain reaching the roots · 14 days
17 OctToday
Reached the roots
Rain that did not
3 days of 14
Thirty years
Rain in Porto through a normal year
Across a normal year Porto gets about 1302.8mm of rain, most of it in December (182.8mm) and least in July (23.6mm).
A normal October in Porto has rain on 15 days. Only 12 of them bring enough to reach a root.
That makes Porto one of the wetter places this site covers in Europe in October — 5th of 116, against Vigo at the wet end (238.7mm) and Athens at the dry end (26.1mm).
JFMAMJJulASONDec
Average rainfall by month, 1995–2024
What it means
What that means for what you grow
- Pots and hanging basketsWorst hit, and first to suffer. Very little soil, fully exposed, and nothing to fall back on — in this weather they can empty in a day.
- Salad and leafy vegShallow-rooted and quick to bolt once they run dry. First priority of anything in the ground.
- Beds and bordersA long soak that reaches the roots is worth more than a daily sprinkle, which only wets the surface and is gone by lunchtime.
- Established shrubs and treesFine as they are. They draw from far deeper than a dry spell reaches.