Simulation of a Flash Flooding Storm at the Steep Edge of the Himalayas*
نویسندگان
چکیده
A flash flood and landslide in the Leh region of the Indus Valley in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir on 5–6 August 2010 resulted in hundreds of deaths and great property damage. Observations have led to the hypothesis that the storm, which formed over the Tibetan Plateau, was steered over the steep edge of the plateau by 500-hPa winds and then energized by the ingestion of lower-level moist air, which was approaching from the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal and rose up the Himalayan barrier. A coupled land surface and atmospheric model simulation validates this hypothesized storm scenario, with themodel storm taking the form of a traveling mesoscale squall line with a leading convective line, trailing stratiform region, and midlevel inflow jet. In this region, the development of a mesoscale storm over high terrain is highly unusual, especially one in the form of a propagating squall line system. This unusual storm occurrence and behavior could serve as a warning sign in flash flood prediction. The coupled atmosphere and land surface model showed that the excessive runoff leading to the flood and landslide were favored by the occurrence of this unusual meteorological event coinciding temporally and spatially with favorable hydrologic conditions. Additionally, the model simulations showed that previous rainstorms had moistened the soil during the entire season and especially over the few days leading up to the Leh flood, so the normally arid mountainsides were likely not able to rapidly absorb the additional rainfall of the sudden 5 August squall line.
منابع مشابه
A FLASH-FLOODING STORM AT THE STEEP EDGE OF HIGH TERRAIN Disaster in the Himalayas
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 ...
متن کاملبررسی پتانسیل سیلخیزی حوزه آبخیز کشفرود مشهد بر اساس روش SCS درمحیط GIS
Kashafrud Watershed Area is the part of the Great Plains Gharehghom in the northeastern province of Khorasan Razavi with area of 8996 square kilometers and considered the main drain Mashhad plain. to determine flooding potential of Kashafrud watershed used of modified SCS Method, the GIS system according to classification of map watershed and Tamab grade 4 in the digital elevation model, mappin...
متن کاملA 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 ...
متن کاملFlash Flooding in East Azerbaijan Province, Iran: A Field Report
On Friday, 14 April 2017, a heavy flash flood occurred in North-West of Iran that affected 12 cities; the most severely affected and damaged ones were Ajabshir and Azarshahr in East Azerbaijan Province. These Flash floods claimed the lives of 42 people. Major casualties occurred when the victims were trapped inside their cars. According to preliminary analyses, flood damages in East Azerbaijan ...
متن کاملApplying a climatologically oriented GIS in comparison of TRMM estimated severe thunderstorm rainfalls with ground truth in Sydney metropolitan area
The main objective of the current research was comparison of severe thunderstorm rainfalls with TRMM data when flash flooding events observed in the Sydney Metropolitan Area (SMA) located in NSW, Australia. Severe Thunderstorm Rainfall Events have been first extracted from the severe storm archive of the Australian BOM, by induction of specific criteria. The corresponded derived dataset includ...
متن کامل