What is in this file
One row per state, plus DC and Puerto Rico where available. The rank universe is 50 states; reference rows have an empty rank. The file is sorted by descending value with reference jurisdictions after the states.
- Period
- 1991–2020 average
- Release
- 2026-10-06
- Updated
- 2026-10-23
- Producer
- NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information
- Source
- nClimDiv statewide climate data · climdiv-norm-pcpnst (period 0010)
- Units
- Inches per year
- Cadence
- Updated monthly; 30-year period averages change once a decade
Quick validation snapshot
Hawaii has the highest estimate (61.7 in); Nevada has the lowest (10.2 in). NOAA publishes an average for the contiguous 48 states (31.3 inches a year for 1991–2020), not one for all 50. These are useful checks when importing the CSV into a spreadsheet. Reference jurisdictions may lie outside the 50-state range, so exclude rows marked reference when reproducing the default state ranks.
NOAA does not publish margins of error for statewide averages. Each value is an area-weighted average of a gridded analysis built from weather stations, so it describes the whole state, not any one town.
Calculation and reproducibility
Sum of the 12 published monthly statewide averages for 1991–2020 (period code 0010).
Immutable edition 2026-10-23 CSV · Full edition registry, including available histories
Column definitions
| Column | Meaning |
|---|---|
| rank | 1 + the number of states with a higher source value; empty for reference rows. |
| jurisdiction | State name or labeled reference jurisdiction. |
| value | Numeric estimate, using the source’s available precision. |
| unit | Inches per year |
| moe_90 | Published 90% margin of error in the same units; empty when not published. |
| reference | True if excluded from the default 50-state ranking. |
| period | Reference period of the observation. |
| release | Date of the source release. |
| source | Producer and table/file identifier. |
| source_url | Producer file or source documentation; microdata rows link to the specific state input ZIP. |
Limits and reuse
A statewide average hides large differences within states, such as wet mountains next to dry valleys. Snowfall is counted as its melted water content, not its depth.
This is an independent arrangement of federal statistical data. Cite the named producer for the original observations and Rank the States for computed ranks. Downloading or embedding does not imply government endorsement. Source files are archived with a checksum for reproducibility.
SHA-256: c4b8409411d57f27518c086bc2594c29e558804a5188b07378b6223ce81d07ff
Citation
Rank the States. Annual precipitation, 1991–2020 average. Source: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, nClimDiv statewide climate data, climdiv-norm-pcpnst (period 0010); released 2026-10-06. Edition 2026-10-23. https://rankthestates.com/data/editions/2026-10-23/annual-precipitation.csv