Malaysia Subnational Rainfall: Dekadal Indicators and CHIRPS Forecasts

A source of dekadal rainfall indicators for Malaysia aggregated by subnational administrative units, produced by the World Food Programme using CHIRPS v2 and CHIRPS-GEFS imagery. It includes 10-day, 1-month, and 3-month rainfall totals, long-term averages, and anomalies updated multiple times per month. The data covers administrative regions identified by standardized Pcode references.

Use Cases

• Drought monitoring using the 3-month rainfall anomaly (r3q) to identify precipitation deficits
• Agricultural planning by comparing current 10-day rainfall (rfh) against long-term averages (rfh_avg)
• Flood risk assessment using the 1-month rolling aggregation (r1h) to detect high-volume accumulation

Strengths

• Uses standardized WFP Pcode references for administrative units
• Includes 3-month rolling anomalies (r3q) for long-term climate monitoring
• Provides pixel counts (n_pixels) to indicate the spatial confidence of the aggregated values

Limitations

• Satellite-derived estimates (CHIRPS) may vary from ground-truth rain gauges in complex terrain
• Temporal resolution is limited to 10-day dekads rather than daily records

Provenance

Source

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

Collection Method

Satellite imagery combined with in-situ station data and aggregated by administrative units

Freshness

Updated frequently with forecasts issued on the 6th, 16th, and 26th and observations finalized mid-month.

Geography

Malaysia