In order to strengthen the objective quantification of autumn rain monitoring and evaluation in West China and improve forecast method of autumn rain in Shaanxi, the climatic characteristics of autumn rain in Shaanxi and their relationship with atmospheric circulation and SST during 1961-2016 were analyzed by using correlation analysis and regression analysis based on the daily precipitation at 77 weather stations of Shaanxi, NCEP reanalysis data, NOAA sea surface temperature (SST), moving average SST index from the Climate Prediction Center in USA and SST index from the National Climate Center in China. The results show that the average onset date of autumn rain in Shaanxi was on September 10, the change trend of the onset date wasn’t obvious in Shaanxi from 1961 to 2016 as a whole, but there were obvious interdecadal variation characteristics. The average end date of autumn rain was on October 7, and it had an earlier tendency in the past 56 years. The intensity of autumn rain decreased in Shaanxi during 1961-2016, but the trend wasn’t significant, and the interdecadal variation was obvious. In the year of strong autumn rain in Shaanxi, the anomalous circulation on 500 hPa with ‘+, -, +’ appeared over Eurasian mid-high latitude, and the western Pacific subtropical high and the Indian-Burma trough were stronger. The intensity of autumn rain in Shaanxi was closely related with ENSO events. The development of cooling (warming) SST in equatorial central-eastern Pacific in spring and summer was beneficial to strong (weak) autumn rain in Shaanxi, and the previous SST anomaly in 

Niño3.4 area of tropical Pacific was interannual prediction signal to the intensity of autumn rain in Shaanxi, which had better indication to autumn rain intensity in Shaanxi.