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Historical extreme rainfall over the Bangalore city, India, on 14 and 15 August 2017: skill of sub-kilometer forecasts from WRF model

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Abstract

Urban extreme rainfall events (UEREs) are one of the weather hazards where modelers continue to struggle for accurate advance prediction despite recent advances in forecasting techniques. Bangalore, one of the prominent IT hubs in India, witnessed many urban flash floods in the recent past; a number of such events happened on 14 and 15 of August 2017, where overnight heavy rains brought several parts of the city to a standstill. In this study, the skill of sub-kilometer resolution forecasts from Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model in simulating these UEREs is examined. This study also compared the model performance for forecasts initialized from different forecast cycles in a day. Our examination for two UERE cases showed that forecast initialized at 0600 UTC yielded best results in terms of forecasting spatial distribution and intensity of rainfall. Our analysis also indicated that increasing model resolution further in convection-permitting resolution (< 3 km) has only marginal impact on spatial distribution of rainfall while model skill in simulating rainfall intensity slightly improved with increasing resolution. As expected, simulation by not deploying a cumulus scheme at cloud-resolving resolution do not make a significant difference in spatial distribution; however, inclusion of cumulus scheme improved quantitative precipitation forecast skill. The inferences from this study are useful for modelers working on improving operational forecast skill of UEREs using mesoscale model.

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Acknowledgements

The support of National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) for WRF modeling system and National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) for real-time data is gratefully acknowledged. The Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Center (KSNDMC) (http://www.ksndmc.org), Govt. of Karnataka, is acknowledged for observation data. The computing facility of CSIR 4PI high-performance computing (HPC) is used for conducting simulations. Author, Rakesh V acknowledges CSIR YSA research grant for support. The support and encouragement from Head, CSIR 4PI, is acknowledged thankfully.

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  1. CSIR Fourth Paradigm Institute (Formerly Centre for Mathematical Modelling and Computer Simulation (C-MMACS), Wind Tunnel Road, Bangalore, 560037, India

    V. Rakesh, G. N. Mohapatra & Ajay Bankar

  2. Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR), Sector 19, Kamla Nehru Nagar, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, 201002, India

    V. Rakesh, G. N. Mohapatra & Ajay Bankar

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  1. V. Rakesh
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Rakesh, V., Mohapatra, G.N. & Bankar, A. Historical extreme rainfall over the Bangalore city, India, on 14 and 15 August 2017: skill of sub-kilometer forecasts from WRF model. Meteorol Atmos Phys 133, 1057–1074 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00703-021-00794-1

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