Uganda Subnational Rainfall: Dekadal CHIRPS Observations and Forecasts

Uganda's subnational rainfall indicators are provided here in 10-day (dekadal) increments, featuring 9 distinct precipitation metrics derived from CHIRPS satellite imagery and CHIRPS-GEFS forecasts. Produced by the World Food Programme, the data includes rolling 1-month and 3-month anomalies to support humanitarian early warning systems.

Use Cases

• Assessing current drought severity by mapping the 3-month rainfall anomaly (r3q) across districts
• Early warning for crop failure using 10-day rainfall forecasts (rfh) and the type column to identify upcoming weather patterns
• Historical trend analysis by comparing current rolling totals (r1h) against long-term averages (r1h_avg)

Strengths

• Provides 9 distinct rainfall metrics including rolling 3-month anomalies
• Uses standardized WFP Pcode references for easy joining with other humanitarian datasets
• Includes n_pixels metadata to indicate the spatial data density for each aggregate

Limitations

• Satellite-derived CHIRPS data may have biases compared to local rain gauge networks
• The type column indicates varying levels of data certainty (forecast vs. final) which must be handled during analysis

Provenance

Source

World Food Programme (WFP) via HDX

Collection Method

Aggregated from CHIRPS version 2 satellite imagery and CHIRPS-GEFS short-term forecasts.

Freshness

Updated six times per month on the 1st, 6th, 11th, 16th, 21st, and 26th.

Geography

Uganda