Rain Log
Keep a record of rainfall where you actually live and see it against the Phoenix normals. Entries stay in your browser and are never uploaded.
Add a reading
The comparison runs against the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport normals, the same station every climate figure on this site comes from.
Stored only in your browser
Every reading you type is saved in this browser on this device and nowhere else. Nothing is uploaded, this site never receives your figures, and no account is involved. Clearing your browsing data will take the log with it.
November 2026
0.00 in
No readings recorded for this month yet.
2026 so far
0.00 in
The normal year at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport is 7.22 in.
Your rain against the Phoenix normal
Each month of the year you picked, with what you recorded beside the Sky Harbor normal. The bar is your total as a share of the larger of the two, so a month above normal fills the row.
- Jan n/a of 0.87 in
- Feb n/a of 0.87 in
- Mar n/a of 0.83 in
- Apr n/a of 0.22 in
- May n/a of 0.13 in
- Jun n/a of 0.02 in
- Jul n/a of 0.91 in
- Aug n/a of 0.93 in
- Sep n/a of 0.57 in
- Oct n/a of 0.56 in
- Nov n/a of 0.57 in
- Dec n/a of 0.74 in
Normals: NOAA NCEI U.S. Climate Normals 1991–2020, monthly, Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (USW00023183). Your figures: what you entered in this browser, unit inches.
The readings you have entered
Nothing recorded yet. Add a reading above and it will be listed here, in the browser you are using, until you clear it.
Why a rain log is worth keeping at all
Phoenix has an official rainfall record, and it belongs to one place: the gauge at Sky Harbor. Every figure on this site, and in the forecast discussion, and on the evening news, traces back to a single instrument at a single airport. That is fine as a long-run average and a poor answer to the question people actually ask, which is how much rain fell where they live.
Summer storms here are small and violent. A single cell can drop an inch on one part of the metro while a gauge five miles away records nothing, and the airport is one point in a basin that runs a hundred miles across. The only way to have your own number is to measure it, and the only way to know whether your number is normal is to hold it beside the airport’s. That comparison is what this tool does, and it is the whole of what it does.
The normals are a yardstick, not a measurement
The figures in the comparison come from NOAA’s U.S. Climate Normals for 1991 to 2020: the average of thirty years of monthly totals at Sky Harbor. A normal is the right tool for “what is a typical July” and the wrong one for “what will next July do”. It will not change until the next set of normals is published, and it describes a month that, statistically, may never quite happen, which is why a month can come in far above or far below it and neither result is a surprise.
The tool shows the median month beside the average one, and in most months of the Phoenix year the two are not close. In July the normal is 0.91 inches and the median is 0.69; in October the normal is 0.56 against a median of 0.19. The gap is the shape of desert rainfall: many dry months and a few very wet ones, with the average describing neither. It is also a warning about reading a single month against a single number, because one storm can move a month from below normal to well above it in an afternoon.
Why anything day-level is an approximation, and is labelled as one
NOAA publishes these normals by month and not by day. There is no published daily rainfall normal for Phoenix, which means there is no honest way to say what a normal month has delivered by, say, the twelfth. To put a partly-finished month against a monthly normal the tool spreads the month’s total evenly across its days and takes the days that have passed, the figure it labels as an approximation wherever it appears.
It is worth being blunt about how wrong that can be. Monsoon rain does not arrive in daily instalments; it arrives in a handful of storms, and a single August storm can deliver more than the month’s whole normal in an hour. So the running figure is the shape of a normal month rather than a record of any real one, and the month it is describing is usually either well ahead of it or well behind. The tool prints it because half a month is still a useful thing to look at, and labels it because a smooth line through a spiky process is exactly the kind of number that should never be mistaken for a measurement.
What makes a log worth keeping
The habit matters more than the gauge. A log that records every event is worth more than one that records the memorable ones, because the memorable rain is exactly the rain that makes a total look wetter than it was. Nobody goes out to the gauge during a light drizzle, and the drizzle is where a lot of the season’s millimetres actually are. Record the date, record the amount, and record it the same day rather than reconstructing the week from memory on Sunday.
Beyond that, the two things that spoil a rainfall record are a gauge in the wrong place and a reading taken carelessly. A gauge under a tree or against a wall catches what the tree and the wall decide, not what the sky delivered. A funnel is easy to block with debris, and a blocked funnel reads as a dry day. And a number entered here is taken entirely at face value: the tool compares whatever you type to the normal, and it has no way to know whether the decimal point landed in the right place.
What happens to what you type
It stays in the browser you typed it in and nowhere else. There is no account, no server and no upload, and this site never receives your readings. The log is a note you are keeping for yourself, stored on your own device. That is the whole of the arrangement, and it is a trade rather than a feature list: the log is private because nothing leaves the device, and it is not permanent because there is nothing holding it except this browser. Clearing your browsing data will take it with it, and a written tally beside the gauge is the copy that survives a phone upgrade.
What the tool will not do is tell you what your total means. A total says how much fell and nothing about whether it fell well. The same inch can soak a yard as an hour of gentle rain or run straight off it in ten minutes of a downpour. This is a record of amounts, compared to an average of amounts, and the judgement about what a season of them did to your garden is yours to make.
- NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information: U.S. Climate Normals 1991–2020, monthly summaries, Phoenix Sky Harbor (USW00023183)
The twelve monthly rainfall normals this log compares against, the median rainfall for each month, the count of rain days in each, and the station the figures belong to.
- NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information: U.S. Climate Normals 1991–2020, annual and seasonal summaries, Phoenix Sky Harbor (USW00023183)
The annual rainfall normal of 7.22 inches and the annual count of rain days, used for the year-to-date comparison rather than summing the months by hand.
Every figure this tool uses was read from the source named above on 11 October 2026. Anything still waiting on a check is listed in the site's data notes rather than shown here as if it were settled.
Before you rely on this
This tool works from climate normals and published guidance, not from live weather. It describes a typical day for the month or date you chose, which is useful for planning and useless as a forecast.
- This tool cannot tell you how much rain fell anywhere except in front of your own gauge. It reasons only from what you type, and it has no radar, no station feed and no forecast. A blank log means a blank comparison rather than a dry month.
- The normal it compares against is for Phoenix Sky Harbor, one official station. Rain in the Valley is famously local: a summer storm can drop an inch on one part of the metro while a gauge five miles away records nothing. The airport is a single point in a basin that runs a hundred miles across, so read the normal as the long-run average for that point and not as the figure for your street.
- Every day-level figure the tool shows is an approximation and is labelled as one. NOAA publishes precipitation normals by month, not by day, so the normal “by this point in the month” is the month’s total spread evenly across its days. Monsoon rain does not arrive in daily instalments (a single August storm can deliver more than the whole month’s normal) and that running figure is the shape of a normal month rather than a record of any real one.
- The normal is a thirty-year average, 1991 to 2020, and it will not change until the next set is published. It is the right tool for “what is a typical July” and the wrong one for “what will next July do”. A month can come in far above or far below normal and neither result is a surprise against a figure that averages both kinds.
- A rain log is only as good as the gauge and the person reading it. The tool takes whatever number you enter at face value; it cannot check for a splash-out, a blocked funnel, a reading taken from a puddle or a decimal point in the wrong place. Garbage in still compares to a normal, and it will still look plausible.
- The log lives in this browser and in no other. It does not follow you to a phone, a second computer or a private window, and clearing your browsing data, resetting the device or switching browsers will take it with it. Nothing is uploaded, which is the trade: the log is private precisely because nothing leaves the device, and permanence is not part of the bargain.
- It compares totals and it does not judge a season. A total tells you how much fell and says nothing about whether it fell well. The same inch can soak a yard in an hour of gentle rain or run straight off it in ten minutes of a downpour. The log records the amount, not the rate.
- Trace amounts are the thinnest part of the record. Every entry here is treated as one rain day, so an amount entered as zero counts as a day the gauge was wet, matching the way NOAA’s rain-day counts include trace. What the normals call a rain day is a day with measurable precipitation, trace included, and this tool draws the same line rather than inventing a stricter one.