A high resolution daily gridded rainfall dataset (1971-2005) for mesoscale meteorological studies

Abstract

In this communication, we discuss the development of a very high resolution (0.5° x 0.5°) daily rainfall data-set for mesoscale meteorological studies over the Indian region. The dataset was developed using quality-controlled rainfall data from more than 3000 rain gauge stations over India. The analysis consists of daily rainfall data for all the seasons for the period 1971-2005. A well-tested interpolation method (Shepard's method) was used to interpolate the station data into regular grids of 0.5° x 0.5° lat. x long. After proper validation, it has been found that the present dataset is better compared to other available datasets. A few case studies have been shown to demonstrate the utility of the dataset for different mesoscale meteorological analyses. However, since the data density is not kept uniform, there is a possibility of temporal inhomogeneity and therefore, the present dataset cannot be used for trend analysis. The dataset is freely available from the India Meteorological Department, Pune.