New homogenized precipitation database for Hungary from 1901

Precipitation is a highly variable meteorological element. Similarly, to other meteorological elements (e.g. temperature), the changes in the measurement practices or in the environment can cause inhomogeneities in the precipitation data series. Therefore, homogenization of precipitation data series is necessary before studying the long-term climate change. In this paper we present the main features of the MASH procedure, which we use to produce homogenized climate datasets for Hungary at the Climate Department of the Hungarian Meteorological Service (OMSZ). Due to the increasing number of discontinued precipitation stations, the number of missing data has increased significantly; therefore the station networks used for precipitation homogenization have been completely renewed. With this renewal, the percentage of missing data has been minimized, the number of data series has been increased and a denser station network is now used in mountainous areas where the spatial variability of precipitation is the highest. As a result, a new, more homogeneous, representative precipitation database of Hungary from 1901 to the present has been created. In the paper, we also examine the main characteristics of the detected inhomogeneities, with examples of the main types of inhomogeneities for some stations.