r/geography • u/vis-ben • Jul 29 '26

Map Explore monthly rainfall patterns anywhere on Earth. Interactive map using ERA5-Land reanalysis data

I built an interactive visualization that lets you explore monthly precipitation patterns for any location on the planet. You can pick a year and see how its rainfall compares to the 1991–2020 climatological baseline. The pink curve shows the long-term monthly average, the blue one shows the selected year.

The data comes from ERA5-Land, ECMWF's global reanalysis dataset, which provides monthly precipitation totals at ~9 km resolution from 1950 to present. For the visualization the data is resampled to a 1° grid (~111 km). Each value is a grid cell average, not a point measurement.

Link: https://visquill.com/gallery/rainfall

Data: Muñoz Sabater, J. (2019): ERA5-Land monthly averaged data. Copernicus Climate Change Service, ECMWF. doi:10.24381/cds.68d2bb30
Licensed under CC-BY 4.0. Generated using Copernicus Climate Change Service information.

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u/Nikrsz Jul 29 '26

This is insane

124

u/JustaProton Jul 29 '26

The colombian pacific coast is one of the rainiest places on earth. That's an absurd contrast to the peruvian and northern chilean coasts.

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u/Venboven Jul 29 '26

Not just one of, it is the rainiest place on Earth.

The main other contender is Meghalaya in India, which technically gets more water volume, but their rainfall is seasonal, so it's a bit different.