The collection and organization of daily meteorological records from the Early Instrumental Period (EIP) has a great interest for scientific research. Nowadays, the concern about climatic change and its possible impact over extreme events, point to the necessity of knowing past climatic scenarios related with those situations. Although it is possible to find some instrumental data since the XVIIth century (like data temperature in Central England), the first systematic information for a European grid does not start until the end of the XVIIIth century. Particularly, in the SPHERE project, the starting year is 1780, starting data of the daily series of Barcelona (the oldest Spanish series located until this moment). Barcelona is located at the NE of Spain, at the Llobregat basin. Other meteorological series starting during the EIP and included in the SPHERE project have been obtained into the framework of previous European projects, like ADVICE, IMPROVE and personal initiatives (data sent by A. Bardossy, P. Jones, C. Pfister). Those series are: Reykjavik, Uppsala, Stockholm, Bern, Basel, Prague, Padova, Milan, Barcelona, Madrid and Cadiz-San Fernando. Finally, the daily series of Paris has been collected and digitalized by the team of the University of Barcelona, into the SPHERE framework.
Besides the previous data from the EIP, the research work carried out in the SPHERE project about the collection and analysis of meteorological records shows the information obtained for the period AD1300-2000. Such information is not homogeneous, however, for which reason it is advisable to distinguish between:
a) Episodes recorded after 1950 and for which pluviometric, hydrological, synoptic and thermodynamic information is available. It is possible to distinguish between two sub-intervals:
1) 1950-1995. Meteorological data are mainly synoptic and thermodynamic, and rain-gauge data are from conventional stations.
2) 1996 up to the present. Besides the previous information, radar data, mesoscale data and precipitation and flow data from automatic networks are available.
b) Episodes recorded between 1780 and 1950, for which mean daily surface pressure and total rainfall is available for various places in Europe, together with technical and handwritten reports:
1) 1780-1880. Early Instrumental Period. Scattered locations available.
2) 1880-1950. Modern Instrumental Period. Grid Databases available.
c) Episodes recorded prior to 1780 for which only information from archives and handwritten papers is available. This work with proxy data has been done by collecting the continuous records of floods in municipal and private documentary sources, from various places in Catalonia.
Starting from historical document sources, early instrumental data (basically, rainfall and surface pressure) and the most recent meteorological information, it is possible to analyse the meteorological patterns producing floods in NE Spain since the 14th century. Besides this, different research fields could use those values for their own research (meteorology, hydrology, climatology, public works engineering, medicine, biology). But also administrations (water authorities, civil protection) could improve their protocols of intervention if they would take into consideration the reconstruction of the severest weather events for the past 220 years.