Understanding ground conditions before storms helps scientists predict heavy rains in monsoon regions
As heavy flooding events, including those in Houston, Texas, and Mumbai, India, continue, research teams from Purdue University and India have been working on improving the models that can help predict heavy rainfall from weather events.
The researchers found that including an improved representation of how hot and wet the land surface is before a storm forms gives significant information that leads to improvements in the prediction of heavy rain timing, location, magnitude and duration.