Today
Has it rained enough in Nashville?
One shower has passed over in three weeks. Every one wet the leaves and was gone by lunchtime — none of it reached the roots.
Nashville has had 40.8mm of rain in the last 30 days. A normal October here brings 92.5mm, so that is about 44% of what the ground usually gets — and the driest October in 30 years was 1.9mm.
Rain reaching the roots · 14 days
18 OctToday
Thirty years
Rain in Nashville through a normal year
Across a normal year Nashville gets about 1391.1mm of rain, most of it in April (131.2mm) and least in October (92.5mm).
A normal October in Nashville has rain on 10 days. Only 7 of them bring enough to reach a root.
That makes Nashville one of the wetter places this site covers in the United States in October — 11th of 30, against Seattle at the wet end (131.5mm) and Las Vegas at the dry end (8.4mm).
JFMAprMJJASOctND
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.