A Flash-flooding Storm at the Steep Edge of High Terrain

T HE DISASTER IN LEH. Less than 1 week after the catastrophic slow-rise flooding of the Indus River in Pakistan in late July 2010 (Houze et al. 2011), f looding of a different, more sudden type produced a disaster in the city of Leh, India, located 500 km to the east. The town of Leh, located in the Ladakh region of Jammu and Kashmir State in India, is a high-altitude cold desert valley, 3,500 m above sea level (Fig. 1a). It lies near the Indus River, which at this location flows northwestward through deep mountain valleys before it turns southwestward through Pakistan on its way to the Arabian Sea (Fig. 1b). The Ladakh region is known for having lownutrient and poor soil conditions, leading to an unsuitable environment for agriculture (Goodall 2004), which could have contributed to the severity of the Leh flood. Torrential rains delivered to the region by a succession of mesoscale convective systems (MCSs; Houze 2004) moving over the region triggered extensive 