Understanding Kerala Floods of 2018: Role of Mixed Rossby-Gravity waves

TL;DR

This study investigates how westward propagating Mixed Rossby-Gravity waves, excited by tropical Pacific disturbances, contributed to the anomalous heavy rainfall and flooding in Kerala during the 2018 monsoon season.

Contribution

It is the first to link the dynamical role of Mixed Rossby-Gravity waves with the 2018 Kerala floods, highlighting their influence on convection and precipitation.

Findings

MRG waves were excited by tropical Pacific disturbances during 2018 monsoon.

Slow mode MRG waves induced divergence, fueling convection and heavy rainfall.

Wider Intertropical Convergence Zone and wind meanders contributed to floods.

Abstract

Kerala, the south-west coastal state of India, was ravaged by a series of floods during the South-West Monsoon of 2018. The season was marked by severely anomalous rainfall trends, with upto 150 mm of departures from the mean daily precipitation in the northern districts of the State. Although, there were many studies about the hydrogeological factors which aggravated the floods in Kerala, no attempt was made to delve into the physics which actually resulted in anomalous precipitation during the year. This study intends to document the dynamical phenomenon which caused the Kerala Floods of 2018. The westward propagating convectively-coupled Mixed Rossby-Gravity (MRG) waves were excited by the synoptic disturbances of the tropical Pacific at the pressure level of 700 hPa, during the Indian Monsoon of 2018. They travelled across the Indian Ocean in two significant modes -- a predominant slow moving wave of 20-40 days period (as Madden-Julian Oscillation) and a secondary faster wave of 5-8 days period. They are characterised by vertical phase propagation to the upper troposphere, a precursor to deep convection and intense precipitation. Further, the propagation of these waves through a medium enhances its relative vorticity and the gyres or circulations thus formed are symmetrical about the equator. Consequently, the meanders in the wind field and widening of the Intertropical Convergence Zone were observed. The MRG waves, especially the slow mode induced divergence in the wind field, which fueled convection in tropics and brought very heavy rainfall to the State of Kerala in 2018.