About the global rainfall timeseries graphs

Analyses available

Global and hemispheric rainfall timeseries are available from 1900 to present for annual, seasonal and monthly rainfall. Seasonal means are December-February (DJF), March-May (MAM), June-August (JJA) and September-November (SON).

Note that rainfall timeseries are presented as anomalies or departures from the 1961-1990 average. Normal values (1961-1990 averages) are currently not available publically.

Data used

Mean rainfall timeseries are calculated using the US National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN) observed gridded precipitation anomalies. These data are publically available from the NCDC. A full overview and description of this data, including references can be found at http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/ghcn/ghcngrid-prcp.html.

The actual data values used to produce each graph are available via the "Raw dataset" link. The format for these data is:

  <start year><start month><end year><end month>   <mean rainfall anomaly (mm)>
    

The "Sorted dataset" link provides the timeseries as a sorted list in order to place recent values in historical context.

Please note that any use of these analyses should be acknowledged to the Bureau of Meteorology. Apart from the purposes of study, research, criticism and review, no part of these data may be reproduced, or redistributed for any commercial purposes, or distributed to a third party for such purpose, without written permission from the Director of Meteorology.

Further information

Peterson, Thomas C. and Russell S. Vose, 1997. An overview of the Global Historical Climatology Network temperature data base, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 78, 2837-2849.

Easterling, David R., Thomas C. Peterson, and Thomas R. Karl, 1996. On the development and use of homogenized climate data sets. Journal of Climate, 9, 1429-1434.

Easterling, David R. and Thomas C. Peterson, 1995. A new method for detecting and adjusting for undocumented discontinuities in climatological timeseries. International Journal of Climatology, 15, 369-377.

Peterson, Thomas C. and David R. Easterling, 1994. Creation of homogeneous composite climatological reference series. International Journal of Climatology, 14, 671-679.