title: Improved prediction of severe thunderstorms over the Indian Monsoon region using high-resolution soil moisture and temperature initialization.
abstract: The hypothesis that realistic land conditions such as soil moisture/soil temperature (SM/ST) can significantly improve the modeling of mesoscale deep convection is tested over the Indian monsoon region (IMR). A high resolution (3 km foot print) SM/ST dataset prepared from a land data assimilation system, as part of a national monsoon mission project, showed close agreement with observations. Experiments are conducted with (LDAS) and without (CNTL) initialization of SM/ST dataset. Results highlight the significance of realistic land surface conditions on numerical prediction of initiation, movement and timing of severe thunderstorms as compared to that currently being initialized by climatological fields in CNTL run. Realistic land conditions improved mass flux, convective updrafts and diabatic heating in the boundary layer that contributed to low level positive potential vorticity. The LDAS run reproduced reflectivity echoes and associated rainfall bands more efficiently. Improper representation of surface conditions in CNTL run limit the evolution boundary layer processes and thereby failed to simulate convection at right time and place. These findings thus provide strong support to the role land conditions play in impacting the deep convection over the IMR. These findings also have direct implications for improving heavy rain forecasting over the IMR, by developing realistic land conditions.
authors.affiliation: Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, National Institute of Technology, Rourkela, Odisha - 769 008, India.|Department of Agronomy and Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA.
authors.forename: K K
authors.initials: KK
authors.lastname: Osuri
authors.affiliation: School of Earth Ocean and Climate Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Bhubaneswar, Odisha - 751 007, India.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Nadimpalli
authors.affiliation: School of Earth Ocean and Climate Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Bhubaneswar, Odisha - 751 007, India.
authors.forename: U C
authors.initials: UC
authors.lastname: Mohanty
authors.affiliation: National Center of Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado 80301, USA.|State Key Laboratory of Severe Weather, Chinese Academy of Meteorological Science, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Ministry of Earth Sciences, New Delhi - 110003, India.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rajeevan
authors.affiliation: Department of Agronomy and Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA.
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Niyogi
mesh_terms: D003198:Computer Simulation; D055867:Cyclonic Storms; D005843:Geography; D006813:Humidity; D007194:India; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D011891:Rain; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012987:Soil; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D013696:Temperature; D013997:Time Factors
chemical_list: D012987:Soil