Based on hourly precipitation forecast data with lead time of 12–36 h for CMA-MESO staring at 08:00 BT and hourly gauge-satellite-radar merged precipitation products in the summer (June to August) of 2020, the performance of CMA-MESO for precipitation forecast in Sichuan Basin and the surrounding areas is thoroughly evaluated in terms of hourly precipitation characteristics. The results show that CMA-MESO can capture the spatial distribution characteristics of summer precipitation. The observed larger values of hourly mean precipitation amount and precipitation frequency are located in the high altitude mountains in the west, north and east of Sichuan Basin, and the observed larger values of precipitation intensity are mainly located on the windward slope of the mountains, but the large centers of forecast precipitation amount and precipitation frequency are located in the south of observations. CMA-MESO reasonably reproduces the diurnal variation of summer mean precipitation which is the eastward-delayed diurnal peak phase of precipitation amount and precipitation frequency in the study region, the bimodal pattern with the diurnal peak in the morning and the sub-peak in the evening of the regional averaged precipitation amount and precipitation frequency and the single diurnal peak of the regional averaged precipitation intensity. However, the diurnal variation phase of forecast leads that of observations. The forecast hourly precipitation amount is larger than observations, and obvious positive deviations mostly occur at night (21:00–03:00 BT) and from afternoon to evening (14:00–20:00 BT), which are mainly contributed by forecast deviations of general rainfall (0.1–10 mm h?1) and heavy rainfall (≥10 mm h?1) respectively, and the large deviations are located from the southeastern margin of the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau to the western Sichuan Basin and in the east and south of Sichuan Basin respectively. The forecast deviation of thermal field and dynamic field combined with the influence of topography is found to be the reason for the forecast deviations of rainfall amount.