Abstract
On 20 July 2021, the city of Zhengzhou in Henan Province, China experienced a record-breaking rainfall event (“21·7”) with a maximum hourly precipitation of 201.9 mm, which caused a significant loss of life and property. Knowledge of the moisture sources and atmospheric circulations associated with this rainstorm can help understand the mechanisms of such extreme rainfall events for more accurate forecasts in the future. To this end, we investigate the moisture sources and pathways related to the “21·7” extreme rainfall with the water vapor budget analysis and the Hybrid Single-Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory model. In addition, the role of the circulation pattern is analyzed systematically based on ERA5 reanalysis. Results indicate that the Western Pacific Ocean and East China contribute 68.8% and 29.5% of the moisture to the extreme rainfall over Zhengzhou, respectively. Under the impact of tropical cyclone In-fa and Cempaka, and Western Pacific Subtropical High, the stable and abundant moisture transports toward Zhengzhou. Strong convergence and dynamic uplift trigger the convection due to the low vortex and the topography of mountains. Our findings can provide implications for short-term, extreme rainfall and flood forecasts under a changing environment.
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Acknowledgements
We thank the editor and reviewers for their constructive comments. XL contributed to modeling, data analysis and original draft. MY contributed to the conception and design, manuscript editing and text review. Hao Wang contributed to the conception, design, and supervision. KL involved in result interpretation and constructive discussions. ND involved in literature review and manuscript co-editing. Hejia Wang, LZ and FW involved in programming and figures drawing. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Funding
This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Project of China (No. 2021YFC3000202); the Second Tibetan Plateau Scientific Expedition and Research (2019QZKK0207); Scientific Research Special Project of Academician Innovation Platform of Hainan Province (YSPTZX202142); the Free Exploration Topic of State Key Laboratory of Simulation and Regulation of Water Cycle in River Basin (SKL2020TS01); NSFC (U1865102); the Open Research Fund of Key Laboratory of Flood & Drought Disaster Defense, the Ministry of Water Resources (No. KYFB202112071051); China Huaneng Group’s Science and Technology Project “Research on Integrated Meteorology and Hydrology Forecasting System in Lancang River Basin” (HNKJ21-HF241).
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Liu, X., Yang, M., Wang, H. et al. Moisture sources and atmospheric circulation associated with the record-breaking rainstorm over Zhengzhou city in July 2021. Nat Hazards 116, 817–836 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-022-05700-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-022-05700-5