This dataset collection brings together the datasets produced from the MICROphysicS of COnvective PrEcipitation (MICROSCOPE) project, the NERC funded part of the wider COPE (COnvective Precipitation Experiment) project. COPE was led by the National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS) and the UK Met Office, and involved scientists at the Universities of Leeds, Manchester and Reading, as well as international partners from the Universities of Purdue and Wyoming. As part of COPE, MICROSCOPE sought to improve predictions of severe convective rainfall by addressing the problem of the microphysics of precipitation in convective clouds. Data were collected during the project over Cornwall and Devon, UK, during July and August 2013 to study the clouds. Three research aircraft (Facility for Airborne Atmospheric Measurements (FAAM) BAe146, Met Office Civil Contingency Aircraft (MOCCA) and University of Wyoming King Air), a ground-based radar and several other ground-based instruments took measurements of exactly how the rain forms and develops. The aircraft were equipped with instruments that can distinguish between liquid and solid particles at 200 mph, for example. A major objective was to find these needles in the haystack – the first few ice crystals that form in amongst the hundreds of cloud droplets per every cubic centimetre of cloud.