What is precipitation?
Precipitation is water falling from the sky — rain, sleet, snow or hail. For kite flying, the meaningful number is how much rain: 2 mm or more in a day usually kills a session.
RainWhy rain matters for kites
A wet sail gains weight and loses shape, so the kite flies lower and lazier. Repeated wetting degrades the fabric and the lines. And if the rain comes with lightning — and rain often does — wet lines and kites are a genuine hazard, so kites and thunderstorms never mix.
What 2 mm actually looks like
- Under 2 mm — Sprinkles at worst. Fine to fly.
- 2–5 mm — Light rain. Sail gets damp, flying degrades.
- 5+ mm — Genuinely wet. Kite comes home with you.
Every city statistics page and best-time page shows the average monthly rainfall for 536 cities, so you can pick a dry season instead of gambling.
Related terms
Good kite dayA good kite day means wind between 8–25 mph, gusts under 31 mph and less than 2 mm of rain. We count these from 3 years of weather data for 536 cities.Kite scoreA kite score is a 0–100 number that tells you whether the wind, gusts, rain and temperature are good for flying a kite right now. 80+ is a YES, 50–79 an EH, under 50 a NOPE.