THE WEATHER BEAT · OCT 28

Ithaca's wettest day on record: 5.1 inches at the Cornell gauge on October 28, 1981

On October 28, 1981, the Ithaca Cornell University gauge measured 5.1 inches of rain, its wettest day in a record back to 1893, and Freeville set its own.

By the Weather Rock October 28, 2026, 8:47 p.m. · 3 min read

GOES satellite view of the event region — Afternoon satellite view of central New York on October 28, 2026, over the Ithaca and Freeville gauges that set their wettest-day records on October 28, 1981. Image: NOAA GOES-East GeoColor via NASA GIBS, 2026-10-28 18:00Z.

Key points

On October 28, 1981, the Ithaca Cornell University gauge in central New York measured 5.1 inches of rain. That is the wettest day in its record with us, which runs from 1893 to 2026.
On the same day, the Freeville gauge east of Ithaca measured 4.8 inches. That is also the wettest day in its record, which runs from 1948 to 2026.
Both records come from our archive of NOAA daily station reports. They still stand today.

On October 28, 1981, it rained in Ithaca, New York, more than on any other day the Cornell University gauge has recorded. That gauge sits by Varna on the east side of town, and it measured 5.1 inches. Its record goes back to 1893. Since then the gauge has seen plenty of wet autumns, spring thaws and summer downpours, and no single day has beaten that Wednesday in late October.

The record covers more than one campus. The same gauge is the record keeper for Varna, Forest Home, Cayuga Heights, Ithaca, South Hill and Brooktondale. A few miles northeast, the gauge outside Freeville measured 4.8 inches that day, the wettest day in its record too. That record starts in 1948 and also covers Dryden.

Our archive has no event name or cause for that day, and this story does not give one either. The archive shows two gauges in the same county, a short drive apart, that each set their all-time daily record on the same date, and neither record has fallen since.

Date	Town	Gauge	Record	Record kept
Oct 28, 1981	Varna NY (Ithaca)	Ithaca Cornell Univ	5.1 in, wettest day	1893 to 2026
Oct 28, 1981	Freeville NY	Freeville 1 NE	4.8 in, wettest day	1948 to 2026

*Source: myweatherrock's archive of NOAA daily station records (GHCN-Daily), stations USC00304174 and USC00303050.*

Look at the last column. Both records were set on the same day, but one gauge has been reporting for much longer than the other. Which record has had more years to be beaten, and which do you think is the harder one to break?

This is a look back at a historic weather day, not emergency information. For current conditions and warnings see weather.gov and your local officials.

The rock's live forecast for the places in this story