Abstract The influence of the spatial organization of tropical convection on the production of extreme instantaneous localized tropical rain rates remains poorly constrained, both in observations and in models. Using retrievals from the Ku‐band radar onboard the GPM satellite, we identify tropical precipitation features (PFs) and quantify their morphological characteristics. We find that PFs that produce extreme instantaneous rain rates are on average larger and have a higher convective area fraction than the average PF. Further, PFs whose convection is more spatially concentrated generate more intense maximum precipitation rates. We compare these observational results to the output of four DYAMOND models. We find that, while there is some model diversity in how sensitive maximum rain rate is to PF morphology, the models all capture the general relationship between PF morphology and extreme precipitation rates.