Development of a new high spatial resolution (0.25° × 0.25°) long period (1901-2010) daily gridded rainfall data set over India and its comparison with existing data sets over the region

Abstract

ABSTRACT. The study discusses development of a new daily gridded rainfall data set (IMD4) at a high spatial resolution (0.25° × 0.25°, latitude × longitude) covering a longer period of 110 years (1901-2010) over the Indian main land.  A comparison of IMD4 with 4 other existing daily gridded rainfall data sets of different spatial resolutions and time periods has also been discussed. For preparing the new gridded data, daily rainfall records from 6955 rain gauge stations in India were used, highest  number of stations used by any studies so far for such a purpose. The gridded data set was developed after making quality control of basic rain-gauge stations. The comparison of IMD4 with other data sets suggested that the climatological and variability features of rainfall over India derived from IMD4 were comparable with the existing gridded daily rainfall data sets. In addition, the spatial rainfall distribution like heavy rainfall areas in the orographic regions of the west coast and over northeast, low rainfall in the lee ward side of the Western Ghats etc. were more realistic and better presented in IMD4 due to its higher spatial resolution and to the higher density of rainfall stations used for its development.