This is the download page for the ENSEMBLES daily gridded observational dataset for precipitation, temperature and sea level pressure in Europe called E-OBS. Bookmark this page for future direct access!

Actual version and update policy
E-OBS datafiles
Access to smaller chunks
OPeNDAP access
Datafiles 2014
Visualize daily maps
Access to underlying station data
Citation and acknowledgement
Guidance for users
Terms of use
Example using E-OBS

ECA&D staff will maintain and update the E-OBS gridded dataset. With the release of version 2.0, we have set up a new registration system which will be used to keep users informed about new versions in the future. If you haven't registered yourself yet as an E-OBS user using this new system, we encourage you to do so here:

Information on older versions of E-OBS can be found here.

The datafiles contain gridded data for 5 elements (daily mean temperature TG, daily minimum temperature TN, daily maximum temperature TX, daily precipitation sum RR and daily averaged sea level pressure PP). They cover the area: 25N-75N x 40W-75E. The data files are in compressed NetCDF format and range in size from 83Mb - 1.2Gb. There are 4 different versions: 2 grid resolutions x 2 grid flavours. Data is made available on a 0.25 and 0.5 degree regular lat-lon grid, as well as on a 0.22 and 0.44 degree rotated pole grid, with the north pole at 39.25N, 162W. The regular grid is the same as the monthly CRU data grids available from the Climatic Research Unit. The rotated grid is the same as used in many ENSEMBLES Regional Climate Models. Besides 'best estimate' values, separate files are provided containing daily standard errors and elevation. See Haylock et al. (2008) and van den Besselaar et al. (2011) for further details. The Global 30 Arc-Second Elevation Data Set (GTOPO30), a global raster Digital Elevation Model (DEM) with a horizontal grid spacing of 30 arc seconds (approximately 1 kilometer) developed by USGS is used for the elevation file.

Follow this link if you want to download E-OBS in about 15 year chunks.

Follow this link if you want to use the E-OBS data via OPeNDAP to select only part of a dataset (downloadable as ASCII or binary).

Follow this link if you want to download gridded datafiles for 2014. They are released on a monthly basis. These files will be replaced with every monthly update and removed after the next full update of the E-OBS dataset.

Follow this link if you want to visualize the daily gridded E-OBS fields.

Klok and Klein Tank (2008; see Project info) describe the ECA&D station dataset that has been used for the gridding (version 1.1). A list of station series used for the actual version of E-OBS is provided for TG, TN, TX, RR and PP. Most of these series are freely available from the daily data webpage. For the remaining series we do not (yet) have the release permission from the data owners.

Whenever you publish research or applications based on these gridded data products, you should include the following acknowledgement and citations.

E-OBS temperature and precipitation:
"We acknowledge the E-OBS dataset from the EU-FP6 project ENSEMBLES (http://ensembles-eu.metoffice.com) and the data providers in the ECA&D project (http://www.ecad.eu)"
"Haylock, M.R., N. Hofstra, A.M.G. Klein Tank, E.J. Klok, P.D. Jones and M. New. 2008: A European daily high-resolution gridded dataset of surface temperature and precipitation. J. Geophys. Res (Atmospheres), 113, D20119, doi:10.1029/2008JD10201" Download as PDF

E-OBS sea level pressure:
"We acknowledge the E-OBS dataset from the EU-FP6 project ENSEMBLES (http://ensembles-eu.metoffice.com) and the data providers in the ECA&D project (http://www.ecad.eu)"
"van den Besselaar, E.J.M., M.R. Haylock, G. van der Schrier and A.M.G. Klein Tank. 2011: A European Daily High-resolution Observational Gridded Data set of Sea Level Pressure. J. Geophys. Res., 116, D11110, doi:10.1029/2010JD015468" Website

Gridded datasets derived through interpolation of station data have a number of potential inaccuracies and errors. These errors can be introduced either by the propagation of errors in the station data or by limitations in the ability of the interpolation method to estimate grid values from the underlying station network. As part of the ENSEMBLES project, MeteoSwiss has evaluated the homogeneity of the station data (see Begert et al. 2008 under Project info) and Oxford University has evaluated the gridded E-OBS dataset (see Hofstra et al. 2009a,b under Project info). An important finding of the latter evaluation is that, in areas where relatively few stations have been used for the interpolation, both precipitation and temperature are over-smoothed. This leads to reduced interpolated values relative to the "true" area-averages, in particular for extremes.

The ECA&D data policy applies. These observational data are strictly for use in non-commercial research and non-commercial education projects only. Scientific results based on these data must be submitted for publication in the open literature without any delay linked to commercial objectives. If you are unsure about the terms "commercial", "research", and "education", please contact the ECA&D staff at eca@knmi.nl for clarification.

An example using the E-OBS dataset is to find the record high European average maximum temperature. This example shown here.