There have been major advances in the last few decades in our understanding of heavy rainfall during monsoon season due to substantial progress in both observation and numerical modelling of monsoon. All these resulted in more accurate forecast of heavy rainfall in short to medium range, (upto five days) with 40% improvement in accuracy of heavy rainfall forecast in recent five years (2018-2022) as compared to previous five years. However, improvement of forecast and warning skill is not sufficient to minimize damage to lives and property. It is essential to extend to hazard forecast systems (hazard models) and then to impact and risk assessment with stakeholder interaction for risk based warning (RBW) and response action to protect lives and livelihoods Considering all these, India Meteorological Department (IMD) has introduced impact based forecast (IBF) for heavy rainfall at meteorological sub-division level since July 2013 and at district and city scale in August, 2019 in its short to medium range forecasts and nowcasts indicating the likely impact of the heavy rainfall in different sectors and required response actions. Thereafter the IBF of heavy rainfall has undergone several changes over the years. Currently, the IBF being implemented by IMD includes all the four components, viz., (i) meteorological hazards, (ii) geophysical hazards, (iii) geospatial applications and (iv) socio-economic conditions and it utilises a web-GIS based decision support system (DSS). In this study we have reviewed various approaches and stages of development of IBF of heavy rainfall in India. The success of IBF of heavy rainfall will enhance the management of critical resources like agriculture, water & power and support urban and disaster management sectors among others while reducing loss of life and property.

To investigate the impact of advanced microphysics schemes using single and double moment (WSM6/WDM6) schemes, numerical simulations are conducted using Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model for a severe mesoscale convective system (MCS) formed over the Korean Peninsula. Spatial rainfall distribution and pattern correlation linked with the convective system are improved in the WDM6 simulation. During the developing stage of the system, the distribution of total hydrometeors is larger in WDM6 compared to WSM6. Along with the mixing ratio of hydrometeors (cloud, rain, graupel, snow, and ice), the number concentration of cloud and rainwater are also predictable in WDM6. To understand the differences in the vertical representation of cloud hydrometeors between the schemes, rain number concentration (Nr) from WSM6 is also computed using particle density to compare with the Nr readily available in WDM6. Varied vertical distribution and large differences in rain number concentration and rain particle mass is evident between the schemes. Inclusion of the number concentration of rain and cloud, CCN, along with the mixing ratio of different hydrometers has improved the storm morphology in WDM6. Furthermore, the latent heating (LH) profiles of six major phase transformation processes (condensation, evaporation, freezing, melting, deposition, and sublimation) are also computed from microphysical production terms to deeply study the storm vertical structure. The main differences in condensation and evaporation terms are evident between the simulations due to the varied treatment of warm rain processes and the inclusion of CCN activation in WDM6. To investigate cloud–aerosol interactions, numerical simulation is conducted by increasing the CCN (aerosol) concentration in WDM6, which simulated comparatively improved pattern correlation for rainfall simulation along with intense hydrometer distribution. It can be inferred that the change in aerosol increased the LH of evaporation and freezing and affected the warming and cooling processes, cloud vertical distribution, and subsequent rainfall. Relatively, the WDM6 simulated latent heating profile distribution is more consistent with the ERA5 computed moisture source and sink terms due to the improved formulation of warm rain processes.