electricsheepafrica/africa-caf-rainfall-subnational

Central African Republic: Rainfall Indicators at Subnational Level

Publisher: WFP - World Food Programme · Source: HDX · License: cc-by · Updated: 2026-04-03

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Abstract

This dataset contains dekadal rainfall indicators, computed from Climate Hazards Group InfraRed Precipitation satellite imagery with insitu Station data (CHIRPS) version 2 and the CHIRPS-GEFS short term rainfall forecasts, aggregated by subnational administrative units.

Included indicators are (for each dekad):

• 10 day rainfall [mm] (rfh)
• rainfall 1-month rolling aggregation [mm] (r1h)
• rainfall 3-month rolling aggregation [mm] (r3h)
• rainfall long term average [mm] (rfh_avg)
• rainfall 1-month rolling aggregation long term average [mm] (r1h_avg)
• rainfall 3-month rolling aggregation long term average [mm] (r3h_avg)
• rainfall anomaly [%] (rfq)
• rainfall 1-month anomaly [%] (r1q)
• rainfall 3-month anomaly [%] (r3q)

The administrative units used for aggregation are based on WFP data and contain a Pcode reference attributed to each unit. The number of input pixels used to create the aggregates, is provided in the n_pixels column. Finally, the type column indicates if the value is based on a forecast, a preliminary or a final product.

Forecasts are issued on the 6th, 16th, and 26th of each month for the upcoming 10-day period (dekad), then updated with improved versions on the 1st, 11th, and 21st. Preliminary observations replace the previous dekad’s forecast on the 3rd, 13th, and 23rd, and are later replaced by final observations—published mid-month (13th or 23rd)—covering all three dekads of the prior month. Please find a summary below:

Publication Day: Forecast type, Covers (Dekad)

• 1st: Updated forecast, 1–10 of the same month
• 6th: Initial forecast, 11–20 of the same month
• 11th: Updated forecast, 1–10 of the same month
• 16th: Initial forecast, 21–end of the same month
• 21st: Updated forecast, 11–20 of the same month
• 26th: Initial forecast, 1–10 of the following month

For more on CHIRPS-GEFS forecasts, see: https://www.chc.ucsb.edu/data/chirps-gefs

For further details, please see the methodology section.

Each row in this dataset represents time-series observations. Temporal coverage is indicated by the date column(s). Geographic scope: CAF.

Curated into ML-ready Parquet format by Electric Sheep Africa.

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Dataset Characteristics

Domain	Climate and environment
Unit of observation	Time-series observations
Rows (total)	145,070
Columns	17 (12 numeric, 4 categorical, 1 datetime)
Train split	116,056 rows
Test split	29,014 rows
Geographic scope	CAF
Publisher	WFP - World Food Programme
HDX last updated	2026-04-03

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Variables

Geographic — n_pixels (range 2.0–2805.0).

Temporal — date.

Identifier / Metadata — adm_id (range 853.0–1001157.0), pcode (CF51, CF215, CF433), esa_source (HDX), esa_processed (2026-04-06).

Other — adm_level (range 1.0–2.0), rfh (range 0.0–302.5714), rfh_avg (range 0.0–127.9246), r1h (range 0.0–601.3334), r1h_avg (range 0.0–364.291) and 6 others.

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Quick Start

from datasets import load_dataset

ds    = load_dataset("electricsheepafrica/africa-caf-rainfall-subnational")
train = ds["train"].to_pandas()
test  = ds["test"].to_pandas()

print(train.shape)
train.head()

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Schema

Column	Type	Null %	Range / Sample Values
date	datetime64[ns]	0.0%
adm_level	int64	0.0%	1.0 – 2.0 (mean 1.809)
adm_id	int64	0.0%	853.0 – 1001157.0 (mean 35284.7191)
pcode	object	0.0%	CF51, CF215, CF433
n_pixels	float64	0.0%	2.0 – 2805.0 (mean 455.5955)
rfh	float64	0.0%	0.0 – 302.5714 (mean 40.7905)
rfh_avg	float64	0.0%	0.0 – 127.9246 (mean 40.9607)
r1h	float64	0.1%	0.0 – 601.3334 (mean 122.4057)
r1h_avg	float64	0.1%	0.0 – 364.291 (mean 122.9864)
r3h	float64	0.5%	0.0067 – 1137.4276 (mean 368.0087)
r3h_avg	float64	0.5%	0.14 – 883.3846 (mean 369.9401)
rfq	float64	0.0%	14.7704 – 476.3929 (mean 99.8797)
r1q	float64	0.1%	16.2397 – 359.9333 (mean 99.6065)
r3q	float64	0.5%	19.388 – 314.5472 (mean 99.3431)
version	object	0.0%	final, prelim, forecast
esa_source	object	0.0%	HDX
esa_processed	object	0.0%	2026-04-06

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Numeric Summary

Column	Min	Max	Mean	Median
adm_level	1.0	2.0	1.809	2.0
adm_id	853.0	1001157.0	35284.7191	12864.0
n_pixels	2.0	2805.0	455.5955	241.0
rfh	0.0	302.5714	40.7905	38.2708
rfh_avg	0.0	127.9246	40.9607	44.09
r1h	0.0	601.3334	122.4057	126.8355
r1h_avg	0.0	364.291	122.9864	134.9618
r3h	0.0067	1137.4276	368.0087	383.5698
r3h_avg	0.14	883.3846	369.9401	393.5557
rfq	14.7704	476.3929	99.8797	96.8039
r1q	16.2397	359.9333	99.6065	98.05
r3q	19.388	314.5472	99.3431	98.6906

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Curation

Raw data was downloaded from HDX via the CKAN API and converted to Parquet. Column names were lowercased and standardised to snake_case. Common missing-value markers (N/A, null, none, -, unknown, no data, #N/A) were unified to NaN. 1 column(s) were cast from string to numeric or datetime based on parse-success rate (>85% threshold). The dataset was split 80/20 into train and test partitions using a fixed random seed (42) and saved as Snappy-compressed Parquet.

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Limitations

• Data originates from WFP - World Food Programme and has not been independently validated by ESA.
• Automated cleaning cannot correct for misreported values, definitional inconsistencies, or sampling bias in the original collection.
• Refer to the original HDX dataset page for the publisher's own methodology notes and caveats.

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Citation

@dataset{hdx_africa_caf_rainfall_subnational,
  title     = {Central African Republic: Rainfall Indicators at Subnational Level},
  author    = {WFP - World Food Programme},
  year      = {2026},
  url       = {https://data.humdata.org/dataset/caf-rainfall-subnational},
  note      = {Repackaged for machine learning by Electric Sheep Africa (https://huggingface.co/electricsheepafrica)}
}

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Electric Sheep Africa — Africa's ML dataset infrastructure. Lagos, Nigeria.