Was the extreme rainfall that caused the August 2022 flood in Pakistan predictable?

Abstract

Pakistan suffered from severe floods in the past, but in August 2022, the country experienced exceptional extreme rainfall events that caused widespread and catastrophic flooding. The 2022 flood affected all aspects of socio-economic lives including agriculture, infrastructure, and mortality of humans and livestock. The two-day accumulated extreme rainfall on 17–18 August was anomalous and contributed the most to the flood in the southern provinces of Pakistan. The damage caused by extreme rainfall and the subsequent flooding has raised questions regarding the predictability of extreme rainfall by the existing weather forecasting models. Here, we use ensemble forecasts from four numerical weather prediction models under THORPEX Interactive Grand Global Ensemble datasets to examine the predictability of extreme rainfall at a six-day lead. The extreme precipitation during 17–18 August 2022 was predictable a week before the event that contributed the most to the flooding. All the forecast models provided an early warning at a six-day lead time. UK Meteorological Office and European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts models produced comparable results to observations at all the lead times. Our findings highlight that an integrated framework of extended quantitative precipitation forecasts and hydrological modeling can help reduce the country’s flood vulnerability and risk associated with it.