Syria Subnational Rainfall: Dekadal Indicators and Anomalies

Nine dekadal rainfall indicators for the Syrian Arab Republic are aggregated by subnational administrative units using CHIRPS v2 and CHIRPS-GEFS satellite imagery. Produced by the World Food Programme, the data includes 10-day, 1-month, and 3-month rainfall totals, long-term averages, and percentage anomalies updated multiple times per month.

Use Cases

• Drought detection by analyzing the rainfall anomaly percentage in the rfq column
• Seasonal trend analysis comparing 3-month rolling aggregations (r3h) to long-term averages (r3h_avg)
• Short-term weather impact modeling using the type column to filter for CHIRPS-GEFS forecasts

Strengths

• 9 distinct rainfall indicators including rolling averages and anomalies
• Standardized WFP Pcode references for administrative units
• Metadata on data status (forecast vs. final) via the type column

Limitations

• Satellite-derived estimates from CHIRPS may vary from local rain gauge measurements
• Temporal resolution is fixed to 10-day dekads

Provenance

Source

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

Collection Method

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

Freshness

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

Geography

Syrian Arab Republic