NWP perspective of the extreme precipitation and flood event in Kerala (India) during August 2018

Abstract In depth examination of the extreme precipitation over Kerala during 15-17th August 2018 – triggering major flood episode in the peninsular Indian state - have been made via the National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF) Unified Model. A rare alignment of an intense low pressure area (LPA) over head Bay of Bengal (BoB) and a couple of typhoons over South China Sea and West Pacific, driven by anomalous sea surface conditions along the south-east Asian coastal belts, kept the low level jet meander from central Arabian Sea to West North Pacific (WNP) and remain relentless throughout the episode. Positive velocity potentials (VP, at 850 hPa) were seen prevailing for the region and some of these VP fringes unevenly crossed over to Kerala - suggestive of an uneven wind convergence – and associated rainfall necessarily not dictated by orography alone. A single system of negative stream functions (SF) suggested the prevalence of a conveyor belt like flow – termed, the ‘Remotely Aligned Intense Tropical Circulations’ (RAITC) – helping bring ‘an additional supply of moisture from WNP to Kerala; the cyclones over the WNP provided large amounts of moisture to the upper air and while some of these cyclones were weakening, a part of this moisture got injected to the south-westward flow and was then propelled further by the BoB LPA. While the NCUM global forecasts could capture the general circulation pattern for the intense precipitation over Kerala in the medium range, the spatial distribution of the heavy spells couldn’t be captured well in day-7 forecast; the strength and movement of the BoB LPA as well as the alignment and intensity modulation of the multiple tropical circulations showed some deviations. The convection permitting regional version of the model, NCUM-R (4 km grid length), exhibited lesser frequency for the light rainfall events, while over-predicting the frequency for the extreme precipitations.