Water climate layer

Annual Precipitation Map

Explore average annual precipitation totals for 2011–2025. The map shows broad wet-to-dry climate patterns and provides context for water availability, ecosystems, and land-use planning.

Explore Interactive Map General methodology
Source
ERA5-Land
Climate period
2011–2025 climatological average
Representation
mm/year

What this map shows

Each value is the mean of complete annual precipitation totals for a grid cell across 2011–2025. The total includes the water-equivalent contribution of rain and snow represented by ERA5-Land.

It does not show rainfall intensity, the number of wet days, seasonal timing, drought duration, runoff, or water available to plants after evaporation and drainage.

How it is calculated

ERA5-Land total precipitation (tp) is accumulated water-equivalent depth in metres. MetriClima reconstructs UTC daily precipitation totals according to the ERA5-Land accumulation convention, sums them into calendar-year totals, converts metres to millimetres, and calculates the arithmetic mean of the annual totals across 2011–2025.

Data source

MetriClima processes ERA5-Land surface data on the 0.1° latitude–longitude download grid. The physical spacing of this geographic grid varies with latitude. ERA5-Land is a land-surface reanalysis dataset providing consistent hourly climate variables.

This layer uses the ERA5-Land total precipitation (tp) variable, representing accumulated precipitation as water-equivalent depth.

Provider
Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), produced by ECMWF

Climate period and representation

2011–2025 climatological average

The map averages 15 annual totals from 2011 through 2025. It describes mean annual precipitation, not its timing or reliability within a year.

mm/year

1 mm of precipitation equals 1 litre of water per square metre. The displayed value is a climatological mean annual total, not precipitation intensity.

How to interpret the map

Higher totals indicate a wetter mean annual climate, but they do not automatically imply greater usable water. Seasonality, evapotranspiration, soil storage, runoff, and demand all influence water availability.

Compare locations cautiously in mountains and near coasts, where precipitation gradients can change over distances smaller than the ERA5-Land grid.

Applications

  • Comparing broad hydroclimatic conditions between locations
  • Providing background for agriculture, forestry, and ecosystem assessment
  • Providing climatic context for rain-fed agriculture and water-resource assessment
  • Interpreting climate classifications and growing-season constraints

Limitations

  • Annual totals conceal seasonal drought, rainfall intensity, snow storage, and year-to-year sequencing.
  • A 15-year average can hide substantial year-to-year variability in annual precipitation totals.
  • Reanalysis precipitation is generally more uncertain than temperature and can be sensitive to topography and convective storms.
  • The map is not a substitute for gauge data, hydrological modeling, or a site water balance.

Explore this map by country

Open Precipitation for a country to start the same interactive map focused on that geography.

Africa (54)
Asia (50)
Australia (14)
Europe (47)
North America (24)
South America (12)