This paper reports on the use of a comparatively simple statistical methodology to study local short time series rainfall data. The objective is to help in agricultural planning, by diminishing the risks associated with some uncertainties affecting this business activity. The analysis starts by assuming a model of unobservable components, trend, cycle, seasonal and irregular, that is well known in many areas of application. When series are in the realm of business and economics, the statistical methods popularized by the US Census Bureau US National Bureau of Economic Research are used for seasonal and cyclical estimation, respectively. The flexibility of these methods makes them good candidates to be applied in the meteorological context, and this is done in this paper for a selection of monthly rainfall time series. Use of the results to help in analysing and forecasting cyclical components is emphasized. The results are interesting. An agricultural entrepreneur, or a group of them located in a single geographical region, will profit by systematically collecting information (monthly in our work) about rainfall, and adopting the scheme of analysis described in this paper. Copyright © 2000 Royal Meteorological Society