The best rain sounds on the internet
Twenty years of people putting rain on the internet. Here are the good ones, and what each is actually for.
People have been putting rain on the internet for about twenty years, and it has split into two camps. There are the ones where you press a button and get rain. And there are the ones where you build the rain yourself.
Both are fine. It depends on whether the rain is background or the whole reason you are here.
The players
Rainy Mood
The original, and still probably the most used. One button, one very good recording, apps on both phones. It works instantly and it sounds right, which is the whole reason it has lasted.
Pluvior
Almost no buttons at all. Load it, rain happens. On a day when you have already made too many decisions, that is exactly what you want.
Rain.today
Clean and simple, and generous enough to review every other rain site on the internet, including the ones that fall apart on good headphones. It also layers under myNoise, which is a trick worth knowing.
The instruments
myNoise
The serious one. Instead of a play button you get sliders, so you can push up the low rumble and pull down the high patter, or the other way round. There is even a setting built to drown out people talking, which is the most useful thing on this whole list if you work near anyone.
It can also tune itself to your own hearing, which nothing else does. Their rain is split up by surface, and the differences really are noticeable:
- Rain Noise — the main one, start here
- Rain on a Tent — their best one, and it deserves it
- Distant Thunder — goes from Still Dry to First Drops to Calm Storm
- Tropical Rain — rain on jungle leaves, warmer and busier
- Rain in the City — wet roads and traffic hiss, the most cinematic one
Stack two or three and you get something no recording can give you.
Noisli
Wider than rain. Trains, fire, and other noise too. The right one when you want to build a whole room instead of just weather.
Rain with something in it
Rainy Cafe
Two sliders: rain and café. Push both and you are suddenly working from a window seat somewhere it is pouring. No idea why it works this well. It does.
Pluviophile.com
Recorded so that it sounds like you are standing in the middle of it. On speakers it is nice. On headphones it is something else entirely. They run a rain radar too, which is worth the visit on its own.
Not rain sites, but
Two more worth having open on a stormy afternoon. Zoom Earth shows you live satellite with rain over the top, which is the best way to watch a storm cross a whole continent. And Blitzortung shows every lightning strike on earth as it happens. New strikes flash white and fade out as they get older. Completely hypnotic in storm season.
Worth saying plainly: these are for watching storms, not for staying safe in one. Use your local weather service for that.
What we built
The mixer at the bottom of this site builds the rain live in your browser instead of playing a recording, so it never loops and never repeats. Five channels. Push the thunder up and storms come round more often.