Today
Has it rained enough in Buffalo?
The last rain heavy enough to soak in fell over a week ago. What has fallen since wet the leaves and no more.
Buffalo has had 20.4mm of rain in the last 30 days. A normal October here brings 97.1mm — and the driest October in the last 30 years still managed 28.7mm. This is drier than anything on that record.
Rain reaching the roots · 14 days
17 OctToday
Reached the roots
Rain that did not
one day of 14
Thirty years
Rain in Buffalo through a normal year
Across a normal year Buffalo gets about 1045.6mm of rain, most of it in July (105.2mm) and least in February (66mm).
A normal October in Buffalo has rain on 16 days. Only 11 of them bring enough to reach a root.
That makes Buffalo one of the wetter places this site covers in the United States in October — 8th of 30, against Seattle at the wet end (131.5mm) and Las Vegas at the dry end (8.4mm).
JFebMAMJJulASOND
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.