Today
Has it rained enough in Charlotte?
The last rain heavy enough to soak in fell over a week ago. What has fallen since wet the leaves and no more.
Charlotte has had 21.6mm of rain in the last 30 days. A normal October here brings 77.5mm, so that is about 28% of what the ground usually gets — and the driest October in 30 years was 2.5mm.
Rain reaching the roots · 14 days
17 OctToday
Thirty years
Rain in Charlotte through a normal year
Across a normal year Charlotte gets about 1084.1mm of rain, most of it in September (107mm) and least in May (76.8mm).
A normal October in Charlotte has rain on 9 days. Only 6 of them bring enough to reach a root.
That makes Charlotte one of the drier places this site covers in the United States in October — 19th of 30, against Seattle at the wet end (131.5mm) and Las Vegas at the dry end (8.4mm).
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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.