A Global Multi-Source Tropical Cyclone Precipitation (MSTCP) Dataset

Abstract. Tropical cyclone precipitation (TCP) has significant impacts on coastal communities through its modulation of flood event frequency as well as the water supply in many regions of the world. Satellite estimates provide our most reliable observations of TCP available globally, however, satellite precipitation estimates were limited because most products only have coverage starting in 1997. In this paper, we present a global dataset of TCP using the newly developed high-resolution Multi-Source Weighted-Ensemble Precipitation, version 2 (MSWEP V2) which spans from January 1979 to date. This Global Multi-Source Tropical Cyclone Precipitation (MSTCP) dataset is comprised of two main files in the format of tables: the main and profile datasets, both from January 1979 to February 2023. The main file provides various TCP statistics per TC track for using the full record from the International Best Track Archive for Climate Stewardship (IBTrACS) dataset, including mean and maximum precipitation rates. The profile dataset comprises the azimuthally averaged precipitation every 10-km away from the center of each storm (until 500 km). The case study of Hurricane Harvey is used to show that MSWEP estimates agree well with another commonly used satellite product. The main statistics of the dataset are analyzed as well, including the differences in the dataset metrics for each of the six TC basins and for each Saffir-Simpson category for storm intensity. The dataset es freely available at: https://zenodo.org/records/10105751.