Station Rainfall Totals Dataset

What this looks like

One real series from the dataset, and real rows from the head of its published extract. Neither is a mock-up: the rows below are the same rows, unchanged, that are in the file you would download.

Seasonal precipitation at United Kingdom

The longest single series this dataset holds — 761 seasonal values, one of 379. Drawn from 600 of them, evenly spaced across the record. The dataset is not this chart.

Drawn to show the shape and resolution of what the dataset contains, not to make a point about United Kingdom. Gaps are breaks, never interpolated.

View the data behind this chart

Underlying data
Period	United Kingdom (mm)
1836	212
1837	130
1838	189
1839	298
1840	120
1841	202
1842	188
1843	240
1844	132
1845	170
1846	304
1847	201
1848	216
1849	190
1850	181
1851	205
1852	312
1853	282
1854	151
1855	162
1856	172
1857	207
1858	204
1859	221
1860	228
1861	182
1862	285
1863	175
1864	194
1865	244
1866	262
1867	260
1868	237
1869	194
1870	151
1871	191
1872	334
1873	167
1874	182
1875	148
1876	229
1877	241
1878	250
1879	397
1880	174
1881	190
1882	256
1883	160
1884	192
1885	160
1886	260
1887	151
1888	213
1889	239
1890	191
1891	296
1892	279
1893	107
1894	204
1895	177
1896	184
1897	250
1898	204
1899	241
1900	161
1901	195
1902	208
1903	286
1904	221
1905	237
1906	220
1907	244
1908	249
1909	235
1910	213
1911	190
1912	381
1913	311
1914	235
1915	169
1916	247
1917	200
1918	246
1919	224
1920	308
1921	203
1922	219
1923	206
1924	306
1925	174
1926	203
1927	224
1928	182
1929	126
1930	196
1931	325
1932	277
1933	181
1934	241
1935	176
1936	150
1937	203
1938	287
1939	178
1940	207
1941	194
1942	212
1943	201
1944	238
1945	201
1946	159
1947	327
1948	197
1949	215
1950	309
1951	250
1952	206
1953	182
1954	207
1955	199
1956	135
1957	300
1958	188
1959	199
1960	171
1961	190
1962	197
1963	280
1964	234
1965	228
1966	253
1967	295
1968	244
1969	233
1970	247
1971	253
1972	256
1973	201
1974	123
1975	193
1976	198
1977	213
1978	201
1979	327
1980	149
1981	293
1982	212
1983	128
1984	145
1985	231
1986	314
1987	232
1988	238
1989	236
1990	216
1991	208
1992	278
1993	260
1994	291
1995	195
1996	176
1997	264
1998	268
1999	253
2000	269
2001	219
2002	245
2003	176
2004	214
2005	236
2006	290
2007	228
2008	247
2009	322
2010	243
2011	186
2012	231
2013	219
2014	247
2015	250
2016	260
2017	188
2018	235
2019	241
2020	141
2021	229
2022	177
2023	286
2024	301
2025	128
2026	197

Sample rows

12 of 6,683,264 rows Taken from the start of observations-precipitation-noaa-ghcn-daily.csv. These are sample rows, not the dataset.

Sample rows from the Station Rainfall Totals Dataset extract
`metric_id`	`subject_id`	`subject_kind`	`value`	`censored`	`censor_operator`	`censor_threshold`	`censor_limit`	`censor_reported`	`unit`	`period_start`	`period_end`	`period_kind`	`basis`	`confidence`	`source_id`	`source_ref`	`qualifier`	`superseded`	`retrieved`
precipitation-daily	ghcn-ca005021220	geography	8.1	—	—	—	—	—	mm	1885-04-20	1885-04-20	day	measured	high	noaa-ghcn-daily	CA005021220/PRCP	—	—	2026-08-31
precipitation-daily	ghcn-ca005021220	geography	12.4	—	—	—	—	—	mm	1885-04-21	1885-04-21	day	measured	high	noaa-ghcn-daily	CA005021220/PRCP	—	—	2026-08-31
precipitation-daily	ghcn-ca005021220	geography	12.7	—	—	—	—	—	mm	1885-04-22	1885-04-22	day	measured	high	noaa-ghcn-daily	CA005021220/PRCP	—	—	2026-08-31
precipitation-daily	ghcn-ca005021220	geography	0	—	—	—	—	—	mm	1885-04-23	1885-04-23	day	measured	high	noaa-ghcn-daily	CA005021220/PRCP	—	—	2026-08-31
precipitation-daily	ghcn-ca005021220	geography	11.4	—	—	—	—	—	mm	1885-04-24	1885-04-24	day	measured	high	noaa-ghcn-daily	CA005021220/PRCP	—	—	2026-08-31
precipitation-daily	ghcn-ca005021220	geography	10.9	—	—	—	—	—	mm	1885-04-25	1885-04-25	day	measured	high	noaa-ghcn-daily	CA005021220/PRCP	—	—	2026-08-31
precipitation-daily	ghcn-ca005021220	geography	0	—	—	—	—	—	mm	1885-04-26	1885-04-26	day	measured	high	noaa-ghcn-daily	CA005021220/PRCP	—	—	2026-08-31
precipitation-daily	ghcn-ca005021220	geography	0	—	—	—	—	—	mm	1885-04-27	1885-04-27	day	measured	high	noaa-ghcn-daily	CA005021220/PRCP	—	—	2026-08-31
precipitation-daily	ghcn-ca005021220	geography	0	—	—	—	—	—	mm	1885-04-28	1885-04-28	day	measured	high	noaa-ghcn-daily	CA005021220/PRCP	—	—	2026-08-31
precipitation-daily	ghcn-ca005021220	geography	0	—	—	—	—	—	mm	1885-04-29	1885-04-29	day	measured	high	noaa-ghcn-daily	CA005021220/PRCP	—	—	2026-08-31
precipitation-daily	ghcn-ca005021220	geography	20.3	—	—	—	—	—	mm	1885-04-30	1885-04-30	day	measured	high	noaa-ghcn-daily	CA005021220/PRCP	—	—	2026-08-31
precipitation-daily	ghcn-ca005021220	geography	0	—	—	—	—	—	mm	1885-05-01	1885-05-01	day	measured	high	noaa-ghcn-daily	CA005021220/PRCP	—	—	2026-08-31

Download these rows as CSV — the same twelve, with the column header, for testing a loader before committing to the full file.

Methodology

Each total is the sum of the daily readings the station holds for the period, and is produced only where the period is nearly completely covered. A month qualifies when it is missing no more than five days and no more than three of those fall consecutively — two tests rather than one, because five scattered absences and a five-day outage are the same number and not the same problem, and rain arrives in runs. A year or a season qualifies only when every one of its months does. Where the test fails nothing is produced: an absent day is never treated as a dry one, and no partial period is scaled up to a whole. Every total records how many days it was added from, and where any day is missing it states that the true figure can only be higher. Winter runs from December through February and is named for the December, so a single winter stays in one value. The thirty-year average is the mean of a station’s own annual totals across the complete WMO 1991–2020 period, produced only where all thirty years qualify — which is why most stations have none.

What this dataset cannot tell you

Read before relying on these figures

A total is a sum of days, so it is only as complete as the record beneath it. Where days are missing the total is stated as a lower bound and the number of days held is recorded on the value — it is never adjusted upwards to compensate.
These are point measurements added up. A station total is not an area or catchment rainfall figure, and averaging whichever stations exist does not make one.
Rain gauges under-catch in wind and snow, most severely at exposed and upland sites, so a long station record can trend for reasons of site and instrument rather than climate. A total inherits that entirely.
A reference average describes the thirty years it was computed over. An anomaly against a 1991–2020 baseline is not comparable with one against 1961–1990, and in a warming climate the difference is systematic rather than random.
Nothing here is a national or regional rainfall statistic, and no total is comparable with a publisher’s own gridded product, which is built from many more gauges and corrected for exposure.

Coverage

Subjects	The GHCN-Daily stations Hydrionis holds a daily rainfall record for, together with the UK areal series that carry a calculated reference average — 163 held
Period	1827–2026
Units	mm
Update cadence	Irregularly, when the publisher releases
Identifier	`station-rainfall-totals` v1.0.0

Fields

Data dictionary →

Every metric this dataset carries, with the unit it is stored in and the geography level it is reported at. Full definitions are in the data dictionary.

Identifier	Field	Unit	Reported at
`precipitation-annual`	Annual precipitation Total depth of precipitation falling over a defined area in a calendar or water year.	mm	monitoring-station, grid-cell
`precipitation-seasonal`	Seasonal precipitation Total depth of precipitation falling over a defined area within a meteorological season.	mm	monitoring-station, grid-cell

Rights and access

Licence position

Open with attribution. Derivative use true; redistribution true; commercial reuse true.

Applies to material authored by US federal agencies. Third-party material carried within a federal product may be separately protected.
HadUK-Grid is available under the Open Government Licence via the CEDA archive, which requires free registration. Other Met Office products, including forecast and commercial services, are separately licensed and are not open.

Permitted uses

Public display
Derived analysis
API delivery
Bulk download
Commercial use

Available to: Public, Developer, Research, Professional, Enterprise. These follow from the rights of the contributing publishers, not from a Hydrionis pricing decision — no access tier can widen what a publisher withheld.

Contributing sources

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information — Global Historical Climatology Network — Daily (GHCN-Daily) (US Government work — public domain)
Met Office — HadUK-Grid gridded climate observations (Open Government Licence v3.0)

Attribution and citation

Cite and reuse →

Two different obligations, deliberately kept apart. One is a condition of somebody else's licence; the other is a request Hydrionis has no standing to enforce.

Attribution you are required to give

These are conditions of the licences the underlying data is published under. They are obligations to the publishers, not to Hydrionis, and they apply to you directly whether or not you mention Hydrionis at all.

Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Met Office — Open Government Licence v3.0 (licence text)

Suggested citation for Hydrionis

Hydrionis (2026), Station Rainfall Totals Dataset, version 1.0.0, accessed 2026-09-02, hydrionis.com/data/datasets/station-rainfall-totals/

Cite Hydrionis where you rely on values Hydrionis computed, on the method that produced them, or on the compilation itself. The underlying measurements remain the publishers’ and their attribution requirements apply to you directly.

Recommended, not required. Hydrionis does not claim rights over unmodified public data it relayed, and doing arithmetic on somebody else’s measurements does not make them Hydrionis’s. Cite the version and the access date: Station Rainfall Totals Dataset changes as publishers release and as methods are revised, and a citation without both cannot be checked later. Full guidance is on cite and reuse.

Changelog

Version 1.0.0 — 2026-08-31

First release: annual and seasonal totals from the daily station records.

Method version: total-over-period 1.0.0

Additions

Annual rainfall totals for every station-year densely enough covered to be added up, the earliest from 1827.
Seasonal totals on the meteorological convention, with winter carried across the new year rather than split at it.
A thirty-year reference average for each station whose 1991–2020 record is complete.

Use this data

Every bulk extract ships with a companion metadata file carrying this dataset’s version, its sources, their licences, the attribution you are required to give and the suggested citation — so the terms travel with the file rather than staying on this page.

About this data

The fields a professional user needs to judge whether this is fit for a particular purpose. Deliberately not a score.

About this data

Everything below is a property of the data rather than a rating of it. There is deliberately no single confidence score: how much a gap matters depends on what you are about to do with the series, and only you know that.

Source	NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information — Global Historical Climatology Network — Daily (GHCN-Daily) · US Government work — public domain Met Office — HadUK-Grid gridded climate observations · Open Government Licence v3.0
How the values came to exist	Derived Computed by Hydrionis
Period held	1827–2026
Known gaps	A total is a sum of days, so it is only as complete as the record beneath it. Where days are missing the total is stated as a lower bound and the number of days held is recorded on the value — it is never adjusted upwards to compensate. These are point measurements added up. A station total is not an area or catchment rainfall figure, and averaging whichever stations exist does not make one. Rain gauges under-catch in wind and snow, most severely at exposed and upland sites, so a long station record can trend for reasons of site and instrument rather than climate. A total inherits that entirely.
Continuity	Version 1.0.0, released 2026-08-31. 1 recorded version; breaking changes and corrections are listed in the changelog above.
Last read from the publisher	not recorded · publisher updates irregularly, when the publisher releases
Redistribution	Permitted by the upstream licences
Commercial reuse	Permitted by the upstream licences. No Hydrionis access tier can widen this.
Methodology	How this was produced