The dataset comprises a range of variables describing characteristics of flood events and river catchments for 480 gauging stations in Germany and Austria. The event characteristics are asscoiated with annual maximum flood events in the period from 1951 to 2010. They include variables on event precipitation, antecedent catchment state, event catchment response, event timing, and event types. The catchment characteristics include variables on catchment area, catchment wetness, tail heaviness of rainfall, nonlinearity of catchment response, and synchronicity of precipitation and catchment state. The variables were compiled as potential predictors of heavy tail behaviour of flood peak distributions. They are based on gauge observations of discharge, E-OBS meteorological data (Haylock et al. 2008), mHM hydrological model simulations (Samaniego et al., 2010), 4DAS climate reanalysis data (Primo et al., 2019), and the 25x25 m resolution EU-DEM v1.1. A short description of the data processing is included in the file inventory and more details can be found in Macdonald et al. (202x) (Citation of article “Event and Catchment Controls of Heavy Tail Behavior of Floods” when available).