Este trabalho teve como objetivo aplicar e estudar 11 índices de extremos de precipitação formulados pelo ETCCDI (Expert Team on Climate Change Detection and Indices, www.clivar.org/organization/etccdi), para a cidade de Cabaceiras-PB, utilizando dados diários de precipitação contínuos de 90 anos. Os índices foram calculados para o comprimento total da série, 1928 a 2017, assim como para três segmentos de 30 anos (1928-1957, 1958-1987 e 1988-2017). Os resultados evidenciaram que para muitos índices, tendências opostas e estatisticamente significativas podem ser observadas a depender do subperíodo estudado, assim como haver diferença entre estas tendências e as obtidas ao analisar-se o período total dos dados. Exemplos disso aconteceram para os índices R1mm, R10mm, R20mm, CWD e PRCPTOT. Trends in extreme precipitation indexes in Cabaceiras (PB) for different periods A B S T R A C TThis work aimed to apply and analyze 11 precipitation extremes indexes formulated by ETCCDI (Expert Team on Climate Change Detection and Indices, www.clivar.org/organization/etccdi), for the city of Cabaceiras, located in the Borborema mesoregion and microregion of Paraíba Oriental Cariri. A municipality in the semiarid region, it has the title of municipality where it rains less in Brazil, with an annual average of just over 300mm. Daily 90-year continuous precipitation data were used for the extreme indices, with the time series analyzed for four distinct periods, the total length of the series, 1928 to 2017, as well as three 30-year segments (1928-1957, 1958- 1987 and 1988-2017). The results showed that for many indices, opposite and significant trends can be observed depending on the sub period studied, as well as differences between these trends and those obtained by analyzing the total data period. The R1, R10 and R20mm indices show significant negative trends in the 1928-1957 sub period, but positive in the following two sub periods, reflecting a significant positive trend in the total period from 1928 to 2017. Other interesting examples are CDD indices for consecutive dry days, and PRCPTOT, for total annual rainfall with rainfall greater than 1mm. The CDD showed significant positive trend only in the 1928-1957 sub period, but non-significant negative trends in the subsequent sub periods, reflecting non-significant negative trends in the total length of the series. The PRCPTOT index shows behavior opposite to the CDD index, with a significant negative trend in the 1928-1957 sub period, positive in 1958-1987 and negative again in 1988-2017, but for the total length of the series the trend is positive and significant. These results show that the analysis of extreme trends is noticeably sensitive to the sample of the analyzed period, and may not reflect the reality of the time series the longer the total length of the time series, and need to be used with caution.Keywords: climate variability, dry and wet periods, semiarid.