Venezuela Subnational Rainfall Indicators and Forecasts by Dekad

Giving access to dekadal rainfall indicators for Venezuela's subnational administrative units, derived from CHIRPS satellite imagery and CHIRPS-GEFS forecasts by the World Food Programme. It tracks 10-day, 1-month, and 3-month rainfall totals and anomalies against long-term averages. The data is updated six times per month to transition from initial forecasts to final validated observations.

Use Cases

• Monitoring drought conditions by analyzing the 3-month rainfall anomaly percentage (r3q) across different regions
• Predicting agricultural stress by comparing current 10-day rainfall (rfh) against the long-term average (rfh_avg)
• Evaluating forecast reliability by comparing records where the type column is 'forecast' against subsequent 'final' observations

Strengths

• Includes long-term averages (rfh_avg) for baseline comparison
• Provides data quality metadata via the n_pixels column
• Uses standardized Pcode references for geospatial interoperability

Limitations

• Relies on satellite-derived estimates (CHIRPS) which may vary from ground-based station measurements
• Final validated observations for a given month are only available mid-way through the following month

Provenance

Source

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

Collection Method

Aggregation of Climate Hazards Group InfraRed Precipitation satellite imagery and in-situ station data

Freshness

Updated every 5 days following a specific publication cycle (1st, 6th, 11th, 16th, 21st, and 26th of each month).

Geography

Venezuela