Analysis of Forecast Failure of a Regional Rainstorm in Qinghai

Based on the ground observation, ERA5 and other data, the regional rainstorm that occurred in northeastern Qinghai on the night of August 28, 2020 was analyzed. The results show that this precipitation occurred in the climate background of relatively high temperature, high humidity and extreme low pressure, and the precipitation process was divided into warm-area precipitation before the front and frontal precipitation, among which the warm-area precipitation was dominant, and it was a regional warm-area rainstorm. The global models, mesoscale models and forecasters as important operational reference all failed to make effective forecasts or prompts for the warm-area precipitation before the front in advance(24 or 12 h), the predicted precipitation was obviously small, and the predicted frontal precipitation by the models were obviously large. The western low-level meso-β-scale wind direction convergence system moving eastwards encountered the high-humidity area at the front of the meso-γ-scale wind speed convergence system to trigger this regional warm-area rainstorm. From the analysis of the mesoscale convergent system based on the vorticity budget equation, it is found that different terms played different roles in the process of warm-area rainstorm. The advective term dominated before the appearance of precipitation, which was favorable for the generation of mesoscale eddies. During the precipitation period, the torsion term and the convergence term were dominant. The torsion term was beneficial to the conversion of horizontal vorticity to vertical vorticity and the enhancement of precipitation intensity. Its maximum was generated 1-2 h earlier than the heavy precipitation. In the later period of precipitation, the convergence term was dominant, which was beneficial to the maintenance of precipitation. In the early stage of precipitation, the apparent heat source was located behind the apparent water vapor sink, which was conducive to the increase in the thickness of the heating column, and the precipitation intensity gradually increased. During the occurrence of heavy precipitation, the apparent heat source and the apparent water vapor sink basically coincided, and the latent heat released by condensation strengthened the upward movement, so that precipitation intensity increased. In this process, the water vapor mainly came from the southeast of the plateau(southwest airflow), followed by the plateau slope area(southeast airflow). During this regional warm-area rain that was wrongly predicted, the extreme minimum pressure, the torsional term in the vorticity budget equation and the abnormal water vapor transport have certain indications for the warm-area rainstorm.