MeteoCoast-EC: An open-access hourly meteorological dataset from automatic weather stations in coastal Ecuador

MeteoCoast-EC is an open-access, multi-variable meteorological dataset comprising 62,815 hourly records collected between January 2022 and May 2026 from three automatic weather stations operated by the Universidad Técnica de Manabí (UTM) in the coastal region of Ecuador: Santa Ana, Portoviejo, and Calderón, located at 50, 64, and 150 m a.s.l. respectively. The dataset addresses a critical observational gap: the coastal region of Ecuador holds the lowest density of operational meteorological stations of any region in the country, and INAMHI (Instituto Nacional de Meteorología e Hidrología) does not currently maintain active stations at the Portoviejo and Calderón sites. This gap is particularly consequential given that the hydrographic systems encompassing these stations experienced extreme precipitation anomalies affecting approximately 93% of basin areas during the 1997-1998 El Niño event, and extreme El Niño events are projected to increase in frequency under ongoing climate change. The monitored area also constitutes the primary agricultural and artisanal fishing zone of Ecuador, where locally observed, sub-daily meteorological records are essential for agroclimatic risk modeling, hydrological forecasting, and early warning system development. Two files are released. The raw export preserves the 75 columns delivered by the WeatherLink API together with the SQL export layer, 68 API fields plus 7 export fields, with no variable withheld. The processed release retains 23 analytically distinct variables, 4 identifiers and 19 measurements, and materializes them as 33 physical columns by adding 9 SI unit conversions and 1 auxiliary grouping key. Data are acquired using Davis Vantage Pro 2 sensors via a JavaScript-based ETL pipeline and stored in a PostgreSQL database at hourly resolution. Neither file is quality-controlled beyond deduplication, so the native sensor values are preserved. MeteoCoast-EC is released under CC BY 4.0 and deposited in Mendeley Data together with the complete processing and figure-generation code.