5-Minute Radar and Gauge Precipitation Accumulations Over the Netherlands

An archive of gridded precipitation data for the Netherlands and surrounding areas. The dataset contains 5-minute accumulations derived from Dutch, Belgian, and German radars, corrected using automatic rain gauge data. It is produced by the Ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken en Koninkrijksrelaties and uses improved algorithms for attenuation correction and data merging.

Use Cases

• Calibrating hydrological models based on high-temporal-resolution precipitation inputs.
• Validating numerical weather prediction outputs using gauge-corrected radar observations.
• Analyzing the spatial distribution of fast-moving showers based on 5-minute accumulation grids.
• Studying precipitation uncertainty by leveraging the multi-radar merging methodology described.

Strengths

• Data is corrected using rain gauges, including additional data from water authorities and companies from November 2024.
• Incorporates improved algorithms for signal attenuation and vertical variation of precipitation from January 2023.
• Merges data from multiple national radar networks (Dutch, Belgian, German) to improve coverage.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count and total dataset size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

Ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken en Koninkrijksrelaties

Collection Method

Radar data from multiple national networks corrected with automatic rain gauge measurements.

Time Range

Archive starting from at least 31 January 2023.

Freshness

Update frequency is unknown, but the description references methodological improvements up to November 2024.

Geography

Netherlands and surrounding areas.