Characteristics and trends of rainstorm activities and their impacts on seasonal vegetation variations in coastal China

•Spatial relationship between rainstorms and NDVI was determined using statistics.•The total number of rainstorms tended to increase sharply in coastal China.•NDVI overall decreased by 0.002% with every 1% increase in rainstorm frequency.•Rainstorm has positive impacts on NDVI in northern parts of the study area in spring.•The responses of vegetation to rainstorm show significant spatio-temporal variations.