Ensemble forecast of a major flooding event in Beijing
Wednesday, November 9, 2016 - 02:31
in Earth & Climate
An extreme rainfall event occurred in Beijing, China, on 21 July 2012. The average 24-h accumulated rainfall across rain gauge stations in the city was 190 mm, which is the highest in Beijing's recorded history since 1951(Chen et al., 2012). The event resulted in major urban flooding in Beijing, with 79 people losing their lives. However, most operational model forecasts failed to capture the precipitation associated with the convection in the warm sector ahead of the approaching cold front (Zhang et al., 2013), which was a key factor contributing to the total amount of extreme precipitation (Tao and Zheng, 2013). Therefore, the intensity of the rainfall was significantly underpredicted by models.