What is the grammatical form for the ungrammatical 昨日雨が降ったそうだ?


Consider the situation in which when I left my house in the morning for
working, I found the street was wet. I think the following expression is
ungrammatical.

> 昨日雨が降ったそうだ。

Because ～そうだ (conjecture) must represent event that will happen in the future
or represent the current state of something or someone.

> 昨日雨が降りそうだった。

does not make sense as well, right?

# Question

So what is the correct expression to say the following?

> There might be raining yesterday.




You can use [～ようだ](http://jisho.org/word/%E6%A7%98%E3%81%A0) that means
"seeming to be" or "appearing to be":

> 昨日雨が降った **ようだ** 。
>
> It seems that it rained yesterday.

* * *

By the way, 昨日雨が降りそうだった。 is still a valid sentence which means "it seemed
likely to rain yesterday."

This is valid because "雨が降りそう" was a conjecture about future or present at the
time it was made.




You can use [～ようだ](http://jisho.org/word/%E6%A7%98%E3%81%A0) that means
"seeming to be" or "appearing to be":

> 昨日雨が降った **ようだ** 。
>
> It seems that it rained yesterday.

* * *

By the way, 昨日雨が降りそうだった。 is still a valid sentence which means "it seemed
likely to rain yesterday."

This is valid because "雨が降りそう" was a conjecture about future or present at the
time it was made.

