Wintertime Seasonal Scale Simulation over Western Himalaya Using RegCM3

The Himalayan region of north India is composed of complex mountain ranges with different altitudes and orientations, causing prevailing weather conditions to be complex. Wintertime eastward moving synoptic weather systems ‘Western Disturbances’ (WDs) yield large amounts of precipitation over this region. Numerous micro/mesoscale circulations become generated along with prevailing weather due to surface heterogeneity and land-use variability of the Himalayan region. WDs along with these circulations may give rise to very adverse weather conditions over the region. Intraseasonal variability of surface climate over the Himalayas is studied using regional climate model (RegCM3) with 60 km resolution. A 6–month (Oct. 1999–Mar. 2000) period, as this period has received an enormous amount of precipitation in the form of snow, is considered to study surface climate variability in terms of temperature, precipitation and snow amount. Model simulations show cold bias over the Himalayan region and warm bias over northwest India. Average monthly distribution of temperature indicates that a controlled experiment could capture the areas of lowest temperature regime. Precipitation fields could be simulated only up to a certain degree of satisfaction and the influence of topographic elevation and valleys needs to be seen. RegCM3 provides a representation of resolvable atmospheric circulations that results in explaining mean variability during winter.