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Rain radar · United States

Rain radar: where it is raining right now

A live precipitation map for the United States — rain, showers and storm cells, with the hourly outlook for one city underneath. Search your town to move the map onto it.

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Forecast
light moderate heavy very heavy extreme (≥ 1 in/h)
As of: 11:00 AM Data refreshes every 60 minutes

Now and the next few hours

Current readings and precipitation per hour. Pick another city with the search above and both cards follow it.

Chicago
66°
Cloudy
Cloudy
0.00 in/h Precipitation
10 mph Wind

Updated

Next 12 hours · Chicago

Updated 11:45 AM
Precipitation, in/hNumbers on top: chance of precipitation, %
            
11 AM
1 PM
3 PM
5 PM
7 PM
9 PM
No precipitation expected in the next few hours
rain snow heavy (≥ 0.08 in/h)

Rain is coming. Find out before it starts.

This page shows the present. Weather24 pushes the next step: a notification before precipitation reaches you, an hour-by-hour outlook, and a home screen widget.

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Cities with their own rain page

Each of these opens the map over the city itself, with the hourly precipitation for that spot underneath.

Rain radar New YorkRain radar Los AngelesRain radar ChicagoRain radar HoustonRain radar PhoenixRain radar PhiladelphiaRain radar San FranciscoRain radar DallasRain radar WashingtonRain radar AtlantaRain radar BostonRain radar MiamiRain radar SeattleRain radar DetroitRain radar DenverRain radar Tampa all cities →

How to read the rain radar

Color is intensity

Pale green is light rain, solid green and yellow are moderate to heavy, orange and red mean very heavy precipitation or hail. The scale is the same everywhere on the map.

Time-lapse gives direction

One frame tells you where rain is. Playing the last two hours tells you where it is going — which is the part that decides whether you get wet.

Bars are hours, not minutes

The chart under the map counts precipitation per hour in inches, with the chance of precipitation printed above each bar. A tall bar with a low percentage means heavy rain, if it happens at all.

Frequently asked questions

How often does the radar update?
The precipitation frames come from hourly model data and refresh every hour. The timestamp under the map shows which hour the frame on screen belongs to, so you always know how fresh the picture is.
It is raining on me, but the map shows nothing. Why?
Very fine drizzle out of low cloud is often below what the model resolves. The opposite happens too: precipitation can evaporate on the way down, so the map shows rain aloft while the ground under it stays dry.
Does the radar work at night?
Yes. The precipitation map is built from model data, not from a camera, so daylight makes no difference to it. A 3 a.m. frame is as reliable as a 3 p.m. one.
What does the purple mean?
Purple is not part of the rain scale. It belongs to the storm layer, and it does not draw lightning — it draws the storm cell itself, computed from the model as convective energy (CAPE) multiplied by precipitation intensity, so the darker the purple, the more vigorous the core. Within the rain scale, the darkest step is extreme precipitation from roughly an inch per hour upwards. You can see the strikes themselves on the lightning map.
Are these measurements in inches?
Yes. Temperatures are in °F, wind in mph, and precipitation in inches per hour — one hundredth of an inch is the smallest step shown, which is the usual resolution in United States reports.