Abstract We investigate changes of total column water vapor (TCWV) and total precipitation (TP) from the reanalysis ERA-Interim monthly data (1979–2016) in a new space spanned by their ascending values and show that TP extremes increase much more than TCWV extremes do. The trend of the maximum TCWV is 0.47 kg m⁻²/decade, which is equivalent to approximately 0.76%/decade. The trend of the maximum TP is 3.78 mm day⁻¹/decade, which is approximately 8 times the TCWV trend. The trends of extreme TP, defined as the 90th, 95th, 99th, 99.9th, 99.99th percentiles and the maximum of the monthly precipitation values, are 0.63, 1.05, 1.26, 3.29, 10.4, and 12.0%/decade, respectively. These values are larger than the trends of extreme TCWV, ranging from 0.41% to 0.76%/decade.