The Climate Hazards Center Infrared Precipitation with Stations, version 3

Chris Funk; Pete Peterson; Laura Harrison; Robert Saldivar; Martin Landsfeld; Diego Pedreros; Shraddhanand Shukla; Andreas H. Fink; Frank Davenport; Seth H. Peterson; William Turner; Austin Sonnier; Michael Budde; Karyn Tabor; James Verdin; Disha Hauzaree; Mohamed Naim; Daniella Alaso; Gregory Husak

doi:10.1038/s41597-026-07096-4

The Climate Hazards Center Infrared Precipitation with Stations, version 3

Scientific Data

By: Chris Funk, Pete Peterson, Laura Harrison, Robert Saldivar, Martin Landsfeld, Diego Pedreros, Shraddhanand Shukla, Andreas H. Fink, Frank Davenport, Seth H. Peterson, William Turner, Austin Sonnier, Michael Budde, Karyn Tabor, James Verdin, Disha Hauzaree, Mohamed Naim, Daniella Alaso, and Gregory Husak

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-026-07096-4

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Abstract

The Climate Hazards Center Infrared Precipitation with Stations (CHIRPS) data stream combines: (1) a high-resolution climatology, (2) thermal infrared (TIR) geostationary satellite observations, and (3) station observations. In the past, CHIRPS version 2 (CHIRPS2) has proven to be valuable for drought monitoring, hydrologic modeling, scientific studies and agricultural decision making. Version 3 (CHIRPS3) improves each of these components. The new version, CHIRPS3 extends to 60°S/N, adopts an improved variance-preserving TIR-to-precipitation estimation method, uses many more stations and station sources than the original CHIRPS2 product, and implements gauge-undercatch correction. In this paper, we evaluate the performance of satellite-only CHIRP3, CHIRP2, IMERG, PERSIANN- CCS, and GPI using high quality interpolated data in twelve regions with dense station coverage. CHIRP3 represents both the observed mean and variance more accurately than CHIRP2. A usage section in Morocco shows that CHIRPS3 better captures the observed rainfall variability when compared to CHIRPS2. This section also demonstrates how station data should be gauge-undercatch-corrected when validating CHIRPS3.

Suggested Citation

Funk, C., Peterson, P., Harrison, L., Saldivar, R., Landsfeld, M., Pedreros, D., Shukla, S., Fink, A.H., Davenport, F., Peterson, S.H., Turner, W., Sonnier, A., Budde, M., Tabor, K., Verdin, J., Hauzaree, D., Naim, M., Alaso, D., and Husak, G., 2026, The Climate Hazards Center Infrared Precipitation with Stations, version 3: Scientific Data, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-026-07096-4.

Additional publication details
Publication type	Article
Publication Subtype	Journal Article
Title	The Climate Hazards Center Infrared Precipitation with Stations, version 3
Series title	Scientific Data
DOI	10.1038/s41597-026-07096-4
Edition	Online First
Publication Date	April 11, 2026
Year Published	2026
Language	English
Publisher	Nature
Contributing office(s)	Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center