A comprehensive dataset of daily rainfall covering the period from 1972 to 2002 was used to compute the climatology and trend of occurrence and intensity of heavy, weak and normal events of rainfall on Northeast Brazil (NEB). For selection of rainfall events, we used the technique of quantiles and the trend was identified using the nonparametric Mann–Kendall test. The heavy events are modulated by La Niña and El Niño occurrences and in general they presented negative trend concerning to number of episodes and positive trend to daily rainfall.