Multiscale characteristics of an extreme precipitation event over Nepal

Abstract

This study focuses on the analysis of the extreme precipitation event in Central Nepal on 19 July 2007 which was part of a sequence of rain events leading to the devastating South Asia flood of 2007. We investigate synoptic‐scale conditions using reanalyses and attribute moisture sources with a Lagrangian moisture source diagnostic. Further, we characterize the mesoscale precipitation event with a high‐resolution numerical simulation. The simulation reveals an intense wide convective event with a simulated 40 dBZ echo core of considerable horizontal extent (1,550 km 2) exceeding a height of 12 km. Initially small convective cells were invigorated by high CAPE and a potentially unstable layer at mid‐tropospheric levels. This layer reached conditional instability adding latent energy to the system. Isolated convective cells organized upscale into a wide intense convective system, fuelled with moist low‐level inflow. The result was torrential rain with over 250 mm within 24 hr. Several synoptic‐scale conditions contributed to the intense development: (a) supply of moist air with the help of a typical monsoon break condition flow pattern, (b) anomalously significant moisture sources along this path due to prior precipitation events, (c) an upper‐tropospheric trough orienting the atmospheric flow against the Himalayas with associated quasi‐geostrophic forcing creating a favourable environment for convection, and (d) destabilized stratification due to an upslope flow. This analysis encompasses multiple scales and shows how a wide intense convective system, not unusual for this region, can be intensified by distinct synoptic constituents.