Russian Federation Subnational Rainfall Indicators and Anomalies

The World Food Programme (WFP) provides dekadal rainfall indicators for the Russian Federation at subnational administrative levels using CHIRPS v2 and CHIRPS-GEFS satellite data. The data includes 10-day, 1-month, and 3-month rainfall totals, averages, and anomalies aggregated by WFP Pcode units. Records are updated multiple times per month to transition from short-term forecasts to final observations.

Use Cases

• Identifying agricultural drought stress by comparing 3-month rainfall (r3h) against long-term averages (r3h_avg)
• Evaluating short-term precipitation trends using the type column to distinguish between forecast and final products
• Analyzing regional climate variability using the rainfall anomaly percentage (rfq) at the subnational level

Strengths

• Nine distinct rainfall indicators including rolling aggregations and anomalies
• Standardized Pcode references for subnational administrative units
• High-frequency update cycle with forecasts issued three times per month

Limitations

• Satellite-derived estimates may deviate from ground-truth station measurements in high-latitude or mountainous regions
• Statistical reliability of aggregates depends on the n_pixels count, which varies by administrative unit size

Provenance

Source

World Food Programme (WFP)

Collection Method

Aggregation of Climate Hazards Group InfraRed Precipitation with Station data (CHIRPS) version 2 and CHIRPS-GEFS forecasts.

Freshness

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

Geography

Russian Federation