Dataset associated with Van der Wiel, Lenderink, De Vries (2021): Physical storylines of future European drought events like 2018 based on ensemble climate modelling, Weather and Climate Extremes, DOI 10.1016/j.wace.2021.100350. Large ensemble climate modelling time series for the Rhine catchment. The dataset contains three ensembles (present-day, pre-industrial + 2C-warming, pre-industrial + 3C-warming) of 2000 years each, various variables related to drought are included. All data is derived from the EC-Earth global climate model (v2, Hazeleger et al. 2012, DOI 10.1007/s00382-011-1228-5). Descriptions of large ensemble experimental setup can be found in Van der Wiel et al. (2019, DOI 10.1029/2019GL081967). Files: *_d_ECEarth_??_Rhine.tar.gz Additionally, three sets of storylines of droughts similar to the western European drought of 2018 are included. These are the simulated events selected from the large ensembles, using metrics 1, 2 and 3 of Van der Wiel et al. (2021, DOI 10.1016/j.wace.2021.100350). Files: drought18_m[123]_Rhine.tar.gz