New Orleans weather, explained by a local pattern
New Orleans is the wettest major city in America — over 60 inches a year, much of it in tropical summer downpours that flood streets faster than the pumps can drain them. Humidity is a constant; hurricane season is a lifestyle consideration. Winter and early spring offer the driest, most festival-friendly stretch.
How to use this page
The verdict above reads the next 12 hours of official National Weather Service hourly data for central New Orleans and reduces it to one answer. The bar chart underneath shows the precipitation probability hour by hour — taller and bluer means wetter. A quick reading guide: probabilities under 25% are generally safe to plan through, 40% and above during your specific window deserves a plan B, and any active NWS alert (which appears automatically above the chart) outranks everything else on this page.
Conditions can differ across the metro, so for your exact neighborhood — and to check a specific date and time instead of right now — use the ZIP code checker, which also finds your longest dry window of the day. For a deeper read on what these percentages actually mean, see our guide: What does a 40% chance of rain actually mean?