Subseasonal Predictability of the July 2021 Extreme Rainfall Event Over Henan China in S2S Operational Models

Abstract A record‐breaking flooding event occurred in Zhengzhou, Henan Province of China during 17–23 July 2021, causing hundreds of deaths and vast economic losses. Here, we evaluated the predictability of this extreme rainfall event and the impacts of tropical cyclones (TCs) using subseasonal‐to‐seasonal (S2S) operational models. On the monthly timescale, most models initialized in late June reasonably predicted the wet‐in‐north and dry‐in‐south patterns of anomalous rainfall over China in July, accompanied by the well‐predicted westward extension of the western North Pacific subtropical high (WNPSH) and eastward stretching of the South Asian High. On the weekly timescale, only four models captured the location, probability, and sudden intensification of the rainfall extremes in advance of 1 week, largely due to their reasonable prediction of WNPSH variability in mid‐latitudes. However, the S2S models still underestimated the super extremeness of this event. The prediction discrepancies came from the poor predictability of Typhoon IN‐FA and its impact on the daily evolution of the extreme rainfall event, even within a few days forecast lead. Compared with the observation, the prediction bias of tropical disturbance changed the environmental monsoon airflow to induce the earlier warning of rainfall extremes prior to the formation of IN‐FA. After the formation of IN‐FA, the prediction bias of the typhoon's moving speed distorted the typhoon location, which incorrectly predicted the moisture convergence center and underestimated their remote impacts on this heavy rainfall event.