You can also check out the Global Historical Climatology Network. They have timelines going way back, but also data up to 2014 (though not for all stations):
Regarding precipitation (which is the main forcing for terrestial water cycle), I believe that validation is important before application, not only by just comparing the data with observed time series (with raingauge data or hydrological modelling) but also comparing certain features of the time series is important.
We publish this short article in a early career journal evaluating two P global products recently produce making the assessment with some precipitation indexes.
Article Analysis of precipitation features estimated by reanalysis d...
If you use Precipitation from remote sensing, you can improve their performance using local raingauge. The merging algorithm descrived in this work have proved to be succesful in reducing the remote sensed field error. In the paper the parameters of the merging are analyzed against the raingauges density so that one defines their value with the features of the local raingauge network and, therefore, one will not need to perform a calibration procedure.
Conference Paper Analysis of the kernel bandwidth influence in the double smo...
The Water Cycle Integrator of the eartH2Observe project have several global precipitation dataset at
Hi, You can extent the time frame of data that you have and improve its accuracy by merging information. Want to improve the performance of your hydrological model on a scarce data basin?!! We introduce you to our new article where a satellite-reanalysis-gauge merging algorithm is detailed. Article Improving Rainfall Fields in Data-Scarce Basins: Influence o...