What to Do in New Orleans When It Rains | A Local's Guide
When It Rains
in New Orleans
It will. Probably this afternoon. Here’s why that’s not a problem.
Every summer, somebody’s vacation group chat fills with panic because the forecast says thunderstorms all week. Relax. In New Orleans, “thunderstorms” usually means one theatrical downpour around 3 PM that ends before you’ve finished your drink — and this city happens to be unusually good at being indoors. Museums that swallow whole afternoons, free galleries in old Creole buildings, a streetcar with a window seat. This is the rainy-day plan locals actually use.
First, Understand the Rain
It rains more here than in Seattle. It also matters less.
New Orleans gets roughly 60 inches of rain a year — one of the wettest totals of any major American city, and well above famously gray places like Seattle. The difference is in the delivery. Instead of weeks of drizzle, the Gulf sends up warm, wet air that collapses into fast, loud afternoon thunderstorms, especially in summer. They dump everything at once, streets glisten, and an hour later the sun is back out and the sidewalks are steaming.
So the local move is simple: don’t cancel anything. Shift it. Plan something covered for early afternoon, and keep your outdoor plans for morning and evening.
Hurricane season runs June through November. The vast majority of those days are ordinary ones with an ordinary chance of an afternoon shower — but if a named storm is actually in the Gulf during your trip, follow local guidance and the city’s official ready.nola.gov rather than a coffee shop’s blog. For everything short of that, an umbrella and a loose schedule solve it.
The All-Day Shelter
The National WWII Museum — 945 Magazine St
If the radar looks genuinely bad — not an afternoon squall but a real all-day soaker — this is the answer. The National WWII Museum is one of the most-visited museums in the country and it is enormous: multiple pavilions, immersive exhibits, a submarine experience. The museum itself suggests allowing at least four to five hours, which is exactly what you want when the sky won’t cooperate. Open 9 AM–5 PM daily; general admission runs roughly $26–$36.
It’s in the Warehouse District, and it pairs naturally with the next stop, two blocks away.
An Afternoon of Art
Two museums, and two free days if you live here
The Ogden Museum of Southern Art (925 Camp St) holds one of the deepest collections of Southern art anywhere — self-taught visionaries, photography, contemporary Louisiana work — stacked in a bright modern building you can wander for a couple of hours. Louisiana residents get in free on Thursdays, courtesy of the Helis Foundation.
Across town in City Park, the New Orleans Museum of Art runs the same trick on Wednesdays — free general admission for Louisiana residents, with hours running to 7 PM that day. One honest note: NOMA’s famous Besthoff Sculpture Garden is outdoors. Save it for the sun; the museum proper is the rain plan.
Free & Strange in the Quarter
Three roofs within a few blocks of each other
The Historic New Orleans Collection (520 Royal St) might be the best free thing in the French Quarter: serious, beautifully mounted exhibitions on the city’s history, housed in a complex of historic buildings. Admission is free — they ask you to pick up a ticket at the desk or reserve online. Closed Mondays.
Around the corner, the New Orleans Pharmacy Museum (514 Chartres St) is the strange one — an 1823 apothecary that belonged to America’s first licensed pharmacist, its shelves still stocked with leeches jars, voodoo remedies and surgical kit that will make you grateful for modern medicine. Around $10, open Tuesday–Saturday.
And where Canal meets Magazine, the Sazerac House pours the city’s cocktail history across three interactive floors — free, with complimentary tastings, though you’ll want to reserve a slot online and bring ID (21+ to enter).
Ride the Storm Out
The streetcar is a rainy-day activity, not just a ride
Locals know this one: when it rains, take the St. Charles streetcar end to end. A window seat on a 100-year-old car, rain on the glass, the mansions and live oaks of the Avenue sliding past — it’s the cheapest atmospheric experience in the city at $1.25 a ride, and you never have to open your umbrella. The Canal line does the same trick past the cemeteries.
We wrote a full guide to every line, fare and transfer — see the New Orleans Streetcar Guide.
The French Market is covered but open-air — fine in a drizzle, miserable in a sideways squall. And swamp tours, walking tours and the sculpture garden are exactly what they sound like. Morning and evening are theirs.
If You’ve Got Kids
Louisiana Children’s Museum — City Park
The Louisiana Children’s Museum sits on 8.5 acres in City Park with a big, bright indoor wing built for exactly this scenario — hands-on water tables, climbing, role-play grocery stores, the works. Around $23 a head (adults and kids alike), open Tuesday–Sunday; timed-entry tickets are smart on weekends. When the storm passes, City Park itself is right outside the door.
The Coffeehouse Afternoon
Our favorite rainy-day plan, admittedly with a bias
Here’s ours. Witches Brew Coffee Co. sits on Canal Street in Mid-City — on the streetcar line, with rear parking if you’re driving and a covered patio that turns a downpour into the entertainment. Order a pot from the loose-leaf tea apothecary, or a nitro matcha, or the single-family Nicaraguan drinking chocolate that exists for weather like this, add something from the pastry case, and let the storm do its hour.
Not sure what to order? The first-timer’s guide sorts it by what you already drink — and if you’re riding out the rain with a laptop, we made a guide to working from New Orleans coffee shops too.