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nldas3·dataset

North American Precipitation Estimates (NLDAS-3)

NLDAS-3 Precipitation Forcing Dataset
atmosphere NASA VEDA COG
In plain English

What it measures. An updated version that provides fine-scale estimates of rainfall and snowfall across North and Central America, including Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico, at about 1-kilometre detail.

How it's made. Built by blending rain-gauge readings, satellite data, and weather models through data assimilation.

How & where you'd use it. Feeds flood, drought, and water-supply forecasting with detailed precipitation inputs.

What's measured

nldas3

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2001-01-01 → 2021-12-31
  • Spatial extent-168.98, 7.02, -51.94, 72.06
  • FormatsCOG

What you can do with it

  • Map air pollutants — NO₂, aerosols, ozone
  • Track greenhouse gases and Earth's energy budget
  • Feed weather and air-quality analysis
Official description

NLDAS-3 provides a fine-scale (1 km) meteorological forcing (precipitation) in both retrospective and near real-time over North and Central America, including Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico, by leveraging high-quality gauge, satellite, and model datasets through advanced data assimilation methods. Read more: https://ldas.gsfc.nasa.gov/nldas/v3

Get the data

veda_access.py
# NASA VEDA — open STAC API, anonymous (cloud-optimized GeoTIFFs)
from pystac_client import Client

cat = Client.open("https://openveda.cloud/api/stac")
col = cat.get_collection("nldas3")
items = list(col.get_items())          # browse the analysis-ready COGs
# open an asset with rioxarray:
# import rioxarray; da = rioxarray.open_rasterio(items[0].assets["cog_default"].href)
NASA VEDA is an open STAC catalog — browse and stream the cloud-optimized GeoTIFFs anonymously (no login).