Does “right” simulated extreme rainfall result from the “right” representation of rain microphysics?

Abstract

Using the observations from the two‐dimensional video disdrometer and polarimetric radar, a detailed process‐based evaluation of five bulk microphysics schemes in the simulation of an extreme rainfall event over the mountainous coast of South China is performed. Most schemes reproduce one of the heavy rainfall areas, and the NSSL scheme successfully simulates both heavy rainfall areas in this event. However, our analysis reveals that even the NSSL simulation still cannot accurately represent the rain microphysics for this event. Observational analysis shows that abundant small‐ and medium‐sized (1–4 mm) raindrops are the main contributors to the extreme rainfall. All the simulations tend to underpredict raindrops for diameter around 3 mm. The Lin, WSM6, and Morrison simulations agree better with the observed drop size distribution (DSD) for diameter between 1–2 mm for higher rain rate. The Thompson simulation shows a relatively narrow distribution with overpredicted small‐sized (1–2 mm) raindrops. The NSSL simulation has a broad distribution with more large (>4 mm) raindrops probably related to its efficient rain self‐collection process at the low levels, which is conducive to producing extreme rainfall. Proper rain evaporation rate is important in generating cold pools with favorable strength for the maintenance of convective system in this event. Similar results are obtained in the simulations of two additional extreme rainfall cases, in which the NSSL simulation also overpredicts large raindrops while the Thompson simulation produces more small raindrops. This study indicates that more efforts are needed to improve the representation of rain self‐collection/breakup, rain evaporation processes, and DSD for extreme rainfall over South China. It also highlights the importance in careful consideration of rain DSD in addition to radar reflectivity and surface precipitation when analyzing simulations of extreme rainfall in order to avoid “wrong” interpretation of “right” results.This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

ZDR Backwards Arc: Evidence of Multi‐Directional Size Sorting in the Storm Producing 201.9 mm Hourly Rainfall

“…The presence of an arc‐shaped convergence zone was also found in another independent simulation study (Wei et al., 2022) and in analyses with real‐time radar data assimilation (Sun, Li, et al., 2023). In spite of the consensus on the presence of arc‐shaped updrafts, the modeling studies above employed one‐moment schemes in which the variations of raindrop size distributions, which were characterized by rather high temporal‐spatial variability in this event (Cui et al., 2024) and directly linked to surface rainfall accumulations (Huang et al., 2020; H. Li et al., 2023), was overlooked, suggesting a need to examine the interactions between the storm‐scale kinematics and microphysics.…”