Today
Has it rained enough in Detroit?
The last rain heavy enough to soak in fell over a week ago. What has fallen since wet the leaves and no more.
Detroit has had 31.5mm of rain in the last 30 days. A normal October here brings 71.9mm, so that is about 44% of what the ground usually gets — and the driest October in 30 years was 7.7mm.
Rain reaching the roots · 14 days
17 OctToday
Thirty years
Rain in Detroit through a normal year
Across a normal year Detroit gets about 891.3mm of rain, most of it in June (90.4mm) and least in February (57.4mm).
A normal October in Detroit has rain on 13 days. Only 8 of them bring enough to reach a root.
That makes Detroit one of the drier places this site covers in the United States in October — 22nd of 30, against Seattle at the wet end (131.5mm) and Las Vegas at the dry end (8.4mm).
JFebMAMJunJASOND
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.