Library · Noun reference

precipitation

Daily precipitation totals.

Quick facts

Fact	Value
Semantic type	Gridded environmental observations
Units by source	gridmet: default: mm; prism: default: mm
Spatial coverage	Contiguous United States
Temporal resolution	daily total
Available source flavors	gridmet, prism

Usage

data.precipitation(*, source='gridmet', bbox=None, geometry=None, aoi_geojson=None, lat=None, lon=None, start=None, end=None, **kwargs)

Import with from cubedynamics import data. Keyword-only parameters and defaults above come from Python.

Available sources

Source	Coverage	Resolution	Time	Selection constraint
gridmet	Contiguous United States	4,638.3 m	1979-present; daily total	Recent gridMET assets can be provisional and later replaced.
prism	Contiguous United States	approximately 4 km	1981-present; daily total	Recent grids are revised as station data and quality control mature.

Differences among source flavors

The same noun does not make these products numerically interchangeable. CubeDynamics does not silently harmonize units, grids, statistics, or revisions.

Property	gridmet	prism
Units	default: mm	default: mm
Variables / statistics	default: pr	default: ppt
Spatial resolution	4,638.3 m	approximately 4 km
Temporal resolution	daily total	daily total
Coverage	Contiguous United States	Contiguous United States
Time span	1979-present	1981-present
Revision behavior	provider-managed daily observations in annual assets	daily observations with provider historical revisions
Source mode	rolling	rolling
Interpretation constraints	Recent gridMET assets can be provisional and later replaced.	Recent grids are revised as station data and quality control mature.

Check units and statistic choice before comparing values; explicitly align spatial and temporal support. Record the serving revision and retrieval metadata from each result. Learn: provenance and source choice.

Returned data

An xarray.DataArray named precipitation, normally with time, y, x dimensions. time stores acquisition/observation times; y and x store grid coordinates in the declared CRS. Inspect the actual dimensions and CRS before combining sources.

Units are source-specific (above), not silently harmonized. Attributes include scientific_noun, source_flavor, source_variables, source_provider, source_product, spatial_query, temporal_query, crs, retrieved_at, data_state, and serving/schema provenance. See provenance helpers.

Minimal reproducible example

Network example: requires the provider and its optional dependencies. This is a real-data request, not an offline certification. For frozen inputs, use the reviewed notebooks.

from cubedynamics import data
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

cube = data.precipitation(
    source="prism", bbox=[-105.55, 39.85, -105.05, 40.15],
    start="2024-06-01", end="2024-06-03",
)
cube.isel(time=0).plot()
plt.show()

Quality and provenance

Source	Lifecycle	Revision	Revision status	Live health	QA profile
gridmet	implemented	precipitation.gridmet@2026-08-26.1	VALIDATED	STALE	climate_continuous_daily
prism	implemented	precipitation.prism@2026-08-26.1	VALIDATED	STALE	climate_continuous_daily

Revision validity is not a claim that the live endpoint is available today. Certification evidence distinguishes reviewed fixtures from live checks. Each source's selection constraint above remains part of the interpretation.