Salt Lake City posted its 2nd rainiest day in 151 years. What was its rainiest day?

If Saturday felt especially rainy in Utah’s capital, it was.

Salt Lake City officially collected 2.47 inches of precipitation on Saturday, marking its second-rainiest day since the National Weather Service began collecting city weather data in 1874. It accounted for most of the 2.61 inches of rain that the city collected over the weekend, which was also more than an inch of rain above what the city had collected in June, July, August and September combined (1.52 inches), per weather service data.

“It just speaks to how wet Saturday was,” said KSL meteorologist Matt Johnson.

The storm was good for the drought-stricken state; it also produced 3.74 inches in Stansbury Park and 2.76 inches in Tooele, helping boost an area that remains in a mix of moderate, severe and extreme drought. In fact, more than three-fourths of Utah remained in severe or extreme drought at the end of the 2025 water year, which wrapped up last week.

Salt Lake City ended up with 10.75 inches of precipitation over the past water year, 4.77 inches below its 30-year normal and the 14th-driest water year since 1874.

However, the downpour also led to flooding over the weekend. Rose Park appeared to be the most impacted in Salt Lake City, as all the excess water flooded homes within the neighborhood’s Willow Place community.

“It was really bad,” said Tam Ly, one of the affected residents, over the weekend. “We saw everyone trying to help put sandbags down, but our house was just flooded.”

Looking back at Salt Lake City’s rainiest day

Saturday was the city’s rainiest day since it received 2.64 inches on May 3, 1901. That storm led to somewhat similar responses at the time, according to newspaper archives from the area.

For instance, Salt Lake City had just come off a relatively low water year in 1900, and it hadn’t rained much in nearly a month before a storm dropped 4.08 inches between May 2 and May 4, 1901. Thus, it “raised the jubilant spirits of the farmers, who have watched the surface of their farms become encrusted,” the Deseret News reported in the middle of all the rain.

However, the reporter noted that if anyone pointed out the “advantages of the rain,” they “would likely have been stabbed with an umbrella” because of the hardships it also created on the city’s homes and roads.

It caused plenty of leaky roofs and forced a temporary shutdown of the city’s streetcar system, newspapers reported at the time. City employees started working to address overflowing ditches and clogged culverts in the early morning because the rain had already caused issues by then, and multiple breaks in the county’s canal system were also reported.

“I have lived in Salt Lake City (for) 46 years, but I never saw the likes of this,” the city’s top water official told the Deseret News.

While Saturday came close, Salt Lake City has yet to see a day like May 3, 1901, since.