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Will It Rain on My Parade?
17 Carnivals of hourly airport weather, lined up against the 2027 schedule. Pick a parade and see what its exact time slot has actually done since 2010.
Parade weather lookup
Weather window: 4:00 PM to 8:00 PM, on the same day of Carnival in each of the last 17 seasons.
- A packable poncho is cheap insurance: rain turned up in this window in about one year in five.
- Light-jacket weather. Layers you can shed beat one heavy coat.
- Gusty in a few past years: tie down hats and skip the loose costume wings.
- Wettest on record for this slot: 2012, with 0.40 in of rain in the window.
Every season, side by side
Purple = rain in the window. *2021: the weather is real, but the parades were canceled that year.
Across every 2027 parade with a known start time, rain showed up somewhere in the four-hour window 15% of the time. Most of that is a passing shower, not a washout.
The main event
Fat Tuesday, every year since 2010
Mardi Gras Day has been as cold as 32°F (2021) and as warm as 82°F (2023). It rained at some point on 5 of 17 of them. The wettest was 2025, with 0.54 in.
| Year | Date | High / low | Parade hours (10-5) | Sky |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | Feb 17 | 72° / 49°F | 71°F | Dry |
| 2025 | Mar 4 | 75° / 58°F | 74°F | Storms |
| 2024 | Feb 13 | 61° / 46°F | 56°F | Dry |
| 2023 | Feb 21 | 82° / 67°F | 79°F | Dry |
| 2022 | Mar 1 | 68° / 45°F | 66°F | Dry |
| 2021* | Feb 16 | 32° / 25°F | 30°F | Dry |
| 2020 | Feb 25 | 68° / 56°F | 66°F | Dry |
| 2019 | Mar 5 | 52° / 36°F | 48°F | Dry |
| 2018 | Feb 13 | 73° / 50°F | 70°F | Dry |
| 2017 | Feb 28 | 79° / 71°F | 78°F | Dry |
| 2016 | Feb 9 | 58° / 41°F | 56°F | Dry |
| 2015 | Feb 17 | 47° / 34°F | 43°F | Rain, 0.02 in |
| 2014 | Mar 4 | 42° / 35°F | 39°F | Rain, 0.46 in |
| 2013 | Feb 12 | 75° / 58°F | 69°F | Rain, 0.04 in |
| 2012 | Feb 21 | 75° / 56°F | 72°F | Dry |
| 2011 | Mar 8 | 74° / 62°F | 72°F | Rain, 0.05 in |
| 2010 | Feb 16 | 50° / 32°F | 47°F | Dry |
*2021: Winter Storm Uri froze the city, and the parades had already been canceled for COVID-19. Fat Tuesday hit only 32°F, the coldest on record in this data.
Day by day
The final ten days, averaged
Each row is the same day of Carnival, averaged over 17 seasons and shown with the 2027 date and the big parades that roll on it. "Rain odds" means measurable rain (0.01 in or more) or thunder at some point that day.
| 2027 day | Big parades | Avg high / low | Rain odds |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sun, Jan 31 | - | 67° / 52°F | 35% |
| Mon, Feb 1 | - | 70° / 53°F | 59% |
| Tue, Feb 2 | - | 72° / 56°F | 41% |
| Wed, Feb 3 | - | 72° / 54°F | 35% |
| Thu, Feb 4 | Krewe of Muses | 68° / 53°F | 47% |
| Fri, Feb 5 | - | 65° / 51°F | 35% |
| Sat, Feb 6 | Krewe of Endymion | 67° / 51°F | 18% |
| Sun, Feb 7 | Krewe of Bacchus | 67° / 51°F | 35% |
| Lundi Gras | Krewe of Orpheus | 65° / 47°F | 59% |
| Fat Tuesday | - | 64° / 48°F | 29% |
Records
The weather hall of fame
The high on February 16, 2021. That is the daytime peak, not the low.
The high on February 28, 2011, in the final ten days of Carnival.
Fell on March 5, 2011, per the airport gauge.
On March 4, 2025. Hold on to your hat, and your ladder.
Thunder was heard at the airport on 10 of the 170 parade-week days in the data. Lightning is the one thing that really does stop a parade.
Where this comes from, and what it can not tell you
- Readings are hourly observations from the weather station at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (KMSY), about 12 miles from the Uptown route. Downtown can run a degree or two different, and a shower can hit one end of St. Charles and miss the other. Source: Iowa Environmental Mesonet
- We use every Carnival from 2010 to 2026, always the same day of the season counted back from Fat Tuesday, so the calendar date moves but the parade stays where it belongs.
- Parade times are the 2027 times on our schedule, and many are still tentative. A parade usually reaches a given spot later than its start time, so treat the window as a guide.
- This is history, not a forecast. Seventeen seasons is a useful sample, not a promise: check the real forecast a few days before you fly.
Next: Mardi Gras by the Numbers (flights, taxis, hotels, police calls) →