Multiscale drought dataset for the Greater Antilles: a resource for environmental and adaptation studies (V1.1)

The Multiscale Drought Dataset for the Greater Antilles (Cuba, Jamaica, La Española, and Puerto Rico) provides monthly drought related products derived from the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI; McKee et al., 1993), calculated using MSWEP precipitation data (Beck et al., 2019) at 0.1° spatial resolution for the period January 1980 to December 2023. The SPI was computed for accumulation periods ranging from 1 to 24 months, producing both spatial and temporal outputs. For accumulation periods longer than one month, data availability begins after the corresponding delay (e.g., SPI-12 starts in January 1981).

To define different drought severity levels moderate (SPI < –0.84), severe (SPI < –1.28), and extreme (SPI < –1.65) the classification proposed by Agnew (2000) was applied, and the corresponding affected areas were calculated accordingly.

The repository is organized into directories by variable type and temporal scale for each island, as follows:

• SPI Spatial drought (SPI1 to SPI24): provided in NetCDF (.nc) format.
• SPI Temporal drought (SPI1 to SPI24): provided in CSV format.
• Monthly percentage of area affected by drought, categorized as Moderate Drought (MD), Severe Drought (SD), and Extreme Drought (ED), in CSV format. (Available for SPI1, SPI3, SPI6, SPI12, SPI18, and SPI24)
• Drought event catalogues, detailing start, end, severity, and duration of each event, and percentage of area affected during drought events, categorized by severity level (MD, SD, and ED), in CSV format (Available for SPI1, SPI3, SPI6, SPI12, SPI18, and SPI24).
• Derived indicators directory for SPI1, SPI3, SPI6, SPI12, SPI18, and SPI24, providing insights into drought temporal dynamics, spatial synchrony, and abrupt hydroclimatic regime shifts across the Greater Antilles. This includes:
• DPI (Drought Persistence Index) – measures the average duration of drought events.
• OSI (Onset Severity Index) – quantifies how quickly droughts intensify after onset.
• DER (Drought Event Ratio) – captures the asymmetry between drought development and recovery phases.
• Co-occurrence matrices of drought years across the islands – highlighting temporal synchronicity.
• Whiplash transition records (MD, SD, and ED) – identifying and characterizing abrupt dry-to-wet and wet-to-dry shifts.
• Moisture Analysis: This directory includes time series (in CSV format) of moisture contributions to precipitation (E − P < 0), derived from a forward analysis of air parcels originating from the Caribbean and North Atlantic (NATL) moisture sources, as well as from each island individually. It also includes the corresponding monthly anomalies.

Version 1.1 (August 3, 2025):
In this version, following the reviewer's recommendation, the two .CSV files one containing drought episodes and the other showing the percentage of area affected during these events  were merged into a single .CSV file.

This database is fully described in:

Stojanovic, M.; Sorí, R.; Pérez-Alarcón, A.; Nieto, R.; and Gimeno, L. (2025). Multiscale drought dataset for the Greater Antilles: a resource for environmental and adaptation studies. Scientific Data. Under Review.