US Counties With the Lowest Yearly Precipitation
3,143 US counties ranked by yearly precipitation, from lowest to highest. First are Imperial County, CA (3.5), Ward County, TX (4.32) and Winkler County, TX (4.32). The middle one of the 3,143 has 37.3.
What this measures
Rain plus melted snow and ice over the year, in inches, averaged across the whole county or state. It is the total of the twelve months, from NOAA's map of weather station readings. Source: NOAA NCEI nClimDiv.
For most measures, a national ranking mostly sorts places by income and by how urban they are. Each county’s own page compares it with the 50 counties most like it instead, which is often the fairer view.
The 100 lowest counties
Every state, lowest first
Each state’s own published figure, not an average of its counties.
| Rank | State | inches |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | New Mexico | 10.9 |
| 2 | Arizona | 11 |
| 3 | Nevada | 12.9 |
| 4 | Utah | 15 |
| 5 | North Dakota | 17.4 |
| 6 | Montana | 18.4 |
| 7 | Wyoming | 18.9 |
| 8 | Colorado | 19.1 |
| 9 | Idaho | 22.1 |
| 10 | South Dakota | 23.3 |
| 11 | Texas | 24 |
| 12 | Minnesota | 24.2 |
| 13 | Nebraska | 24.8 |
| 14 | Kansas | 25.6 |
| 15 | Iowa | 26.9 |
| 16 | California | 27.4 |
| 17 | Oregon | 28.8 |
| 18 | Wisconsin | 30.1 |
| 19 | Michigan | 33.4 |
| 20 | Illinois | 34.6 |
| 21 | Missouri | 35.8 |
| 22 | Washington | 35.8 |
| 23 | Oklahoma | 36.9 |
| 24 | Indiana | 37 |
| 25 | Ohio | 37.8 |
| 26 | Maryland | 38.1 |
| 27 | West Virginia | 40.1 |
| 28 | Virginia | 41.4 |
| 29 | Alaska | 42.3 |
| 30 | Pennsylvania | 43 |
| 31 | Louisiana | 43.7 |
| 32 | Kentucky | 44.1 |
| 33 | Delaware | 44.2 |
| 34 | New York | 46.9 |
| 35 | Mississippi | 47.7 |
| 36 | Tennessee | 48.8 |
| 37 | North Carolina | 48.8 |
| 38 | New Jersey | 50.5 |
| 39 | Alabama | 51.1 |
| 40 | South Carolina | 51.6 |
| 41 | Georgia | 52 |
| 42 | Arkansas | 52.3 |
| 43 | Vermont | 53.3 |
| 44 | Maine | 54.1 |
| 45 | Florida | 54.5 |
| 46 | New Hampshire | 56.3 |
| 47 | Rhode Island | 57.1 |
| 48 | Massachusetts | 57.7 |
| 49 | Hawaii | 59 |
| 50 | Connecticut | 61.5 |
More on yearly precipitation
- US Counties With the Highest Yearly Precipitation
- Yearly precipitation by US county: map by year and what it goes with
A ranking describes places, not the people in them, and a high or low place does not by itself say why. All US rankings.