Changes in extreme daily precipitation over Africa: Insights from a non-asymptotic statistical approach

•Satellite data and new statistical model are combined to examine trends in extreme precipitation.•The model explains ∼90 % of the variance in the trends in extremes observed over Africa.•Most of the trends are attributed to changes in the proportion of very extreme events.•Low-probability extremes always exhibit faster trend rates than annual maxima.•No systematic difference between local and mesoscales is reported.