El Salvador: Subnational Dekadal Rainfall Indicators and Forecasts

WFP provides dekadal rainfall indicators for El Salvador aggregated by subnational administrative units using CHIRPS v2 and CHIRPS-GEFS satellite imagery. The data includes 10-day, 1-month, and 3-month rainfall totals, averages, and anomalies updated multiple times per month. Records are mapped to specific administrative Pcodes to facilitate integration with other humanitarian datasets.

Use Cases

• Drought monitoring using the rfq column to identify regions with significant negative rainfall anomalies
• Agricultural planning by comparing current 3-month rolling rainfall (r3h) against long-term averages (r3h_avg)
• Short-term weather risk assessment using the type column to distinguish between forecast and final observations

Strengths

• Includes long-term averages (rfh_avg, r1h_avg, r3h_avg) for baseline comparison
• Provides data quality metadata via the n_pixels column
• High-frequency update cycle with forecasts issued every 10 days

Limitations

• Satellite-derived estimates from CHIRPS may vary from local ground-station measurements
• Temporal lag for final data which is only published mid-month for the prior month

Provenance

Source

World Food Programme (WFP) using CHIRPS v2 and CHIRPS-GEFS

Collection Method

Satellite imagery aggregation and short-term forecasting

Freshness

Updated multiple times per month on a fixed schedule (1st, 6th, 11th, 16th, 21st, 26th).

Geography

El Salvador