<p>In the present study, a new regional summer precipitation reconstruction of Greece and the Balkan Peninsula since 1595 is presented, together with local summer and spring/summer reconstructions referred to seven main cities of Greece. Reconstructions were based on several existing conifer tree chronologies, almost evenly distributed within the mainland of the Southern Balkan Peninsula. Additionally, a wide collection of historical flood, drought, famine crop destruction, and epidemic events were collected, according to scientific studies, local newspapers, historical books, photographs, personal or state archives and diaries, and monastery records of the area under consideration. The analysis of the results shows that the obtained regional reconstruction is quite representative of the weather conditions of the Balkan Peninsula, and in some cases, the local reconstructions verified precisely the local microclimatic conditions of their specific areas. Between the several collected historical drought and flood events of the area under consideration, almost 61.7% of them were recognized as large-scale wet or dry events by the obtained summer regional reconstruction. Reconstructions of spring–summer identify almost 50% of the relevant historical pieces of evidence. It is also confirmed that the existence of famine and the spread of several past epidemic deceases quite possibly interacted with the occurrence of flood or drought events of the relevant period. To ensure the results of the present study, the available weather station data of the early instrumental period and the existing reconstructions from the literature were reasonably compared. Finally, the collected and fully analyzed archive of the historical events of the present study together with the regionally or locally verified events constitutes a useful and valuable source for understanding the past variability and the history of the climatic conditions of the specific area from the end of the sixteenth century.</p> Graphical abstract <p></p>