Abstract Ecohydrologic processes influence urban water and energy cycles including convective rainfall. Coupled land‐atmosphere models, however, lack fine‐scale representation of urban ecohydrology processes. This study integrates these processes into ensemble land‐atmosphere simulations to assess changes in convective rainfall in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We compare simulations using existing urban land surface representations to ones that resolve processes like tree canopy overhanging pavement and runoff routing from impervious to pervious surfaces. We find that ecohydrologic processes produce cooler and wetter conditions ahead of rainfall due to higher evapotranspiration, especially under weak atmospheric forcing. Simulated rainfall aligns more closely with observed rainfall when ecohydrologic processes are considered, especially in an area of known urban rainfall intensification; more of this rainfall infiltrates. Our findings highlight the importance of model representation of urban ecohydrology to better understand rainfall holistically and the importance of representing these processes for precipitation forecasts and for exploring future city‐scale climate adaptation strategies.