Nigeria Subnational Rainfall: Dekadal Indicators and Forecasts

WFP provides dekadal rainfall indicators for Nigeria's subnational administrative units derived from CHIRPS v2 satellite imagery and CHIRPS-GEFS forecasts. These records include 10-day, 1-month, and 3-month rainfall totals, averages, and anomalies updated up to six times per month.

Use Cases

• Drought monitoring using the 3-month rainfall anomaly percentage (r3q)
• Agricultural season tracking by comparing current 10-day rainfall (rfh) against long-term averages (rfh_avg)
• Hydrological risk assessment using 1-month rolling aggregations (r1h) to detect precipitation trends

Strengths

• Integrates CHIRPS v2 satellite imagery with in-situ station data for higher accuracy
• Distinguishes between forecast, preliminary, and final data via the 'type' column
• Aggregated to standardized WFP Pcode administrative units for easy GIS integration

Limitations

• Satellite-derived estimates may deviate from local ground-truth rain gauge measurements
• Finalized data for a specific month is only available mid-way through the following month

Provenance

Source

World Food Programme (WFP) via CHIRPS and CHIRPS-GEFS

Collection Method

Satellite imagery and in-situ station data aggregation

Freshness

Updated up to six times per month with new forecasts and revised observations.

Geography

Nigeria (subnational level)