The PREC data set is an analysis of monthly precipitation constructed on a 2.5° lat/lon grid over the global for the period from 1948 to the present. The land portion of this global analysis is defined by optimum interpolation of gauge observations at over 17,000 stations collected in the NOAA/NCDC GHCN Version 2 and the NOAA/CPC CAMS data sets. The oceanic precipitation analysis (PREC/O), meanwhile, is produced by EOF reconstruction of historical gauge observations over islands and land areas. The EOF modes are derived from EOF analysis of the satellite estimates for later years (OPI, 1979-1998) with complete spatial coverage. The current version 1.0 is based on the first 8 EOF global modes for each 4 seasons and the first 4 EOF modes of the residual components of the 8 EOF global modes over Atlantic Ocean areas. The climatology is based on time period of 1951-1990 over land and 1979-1998 over oceans.