Dipjyoti Mudiar

Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology | IITM · Department of Monsoon Variability and Predictability

Plain Language Summary Imagine atmospheric rivers (ARs) as massive, flowing rivers in the sky, but instead of water, they carry vapor from the ocean. When these “sky rivers” travel and hit the Andes Mountains in South America, they can cause a lot of rain and snow to fall. This precipitation is often good because it helps fill reservoirs and water...

An unresolved problem of the current Global Climate Models (GCM) is the unrealistic distribution of rainfall over the Indian Summer Monsoon (ISM) region, which is also related to the persistent dry bias over the Indian landmass. Therefore, quantitative prediction of the intensity of rainfall events has remained a challenge for state-of-the-art GCMs...

Atmospheric rivers (ARs) are known to produce both beneficial and extreme rainfall, leading to natural hazards in Chile. Motivated to understand moisture transport during AR events, this study performs a moisture budget analysis along 50 zonally elongated ARs reaching the western coast of South America. We identify the convergence of moist air mass...

Four years of Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology lightning location network lightning observation data are used to determine the seasonal and spatial (over different geographical locations) distribution of the ratio of intra‐cloud (IC) lightning to cloud‐to‐ground (CG) lightning in thunderstorms over the Indian subcontinent. The ratio is high...

Lightning strikes are a well-known danger, and are a leading cause of accidental fatality worldwide. Unfortunately, lightning hazards seldom make headlines in international media coverage because of their infrequency and the low number of casualties each incidence. According to readings from the TRMM LIS lightning sensor, thunderstorms are more com...

An unresolved problem of present generation coupled climate models is the realistic distribution of rainfall over Indian monsoon region, which is also related to the persistent dry bias over Indian land mass. Therefore, quantitative prediction of the intensity of rainfall events has remained a challenge for the state-of-the-art global coupled model...

In the backdrop of a significant improvement in weather prediction with Numerical Weather Prediction models, quantitative prediction of the intensity of heavy rainfall events and associated disasters has remained a challenge. Encouraged by the recent emergence of compelling observational evidence for a significant electrical influence on cloud/rain...

Electro-crystallization, the freezing of water droplet induced by an electric field has been investigated by many investigators previously. But disagreements regarding the cause of freezing still persist in the literature. A cloud chamber of the internal dimension of 1 ft \(\times \) 1 ft has been designed to study electro-crystallization of ‘mm’ s...

The thesis addresses a long-standing problem of the electrical effect in rain formation processes in tropical atmospheric conditions. It has been shown that the electrification of clouds has important implications for cloud and rain microphysical processes. The electric field beneath a thunderstorm enhances the size of raindrops by enhancing the co...

Plain Language Summary The rainfall observed at the Earth's surface is a manifestation of different cloud microphysical processes. The condensation of water vapor on cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) and subsequent collision/coalescence between cloud droplets are the two dominant processes of rain formation in the warm phase of cloud. Many laboratory...

Many studies of cloud electrification have suggested that the presence of precipitation in the mixed phase region of the cloud is essential for charge separation and lightning initiation in clouds. However, observations of the rain gush phenomenon, a transient amplification in near-surface intensity after an overhead lightning also suggest that the...

In the backdrop of a revolution in weather prediction by Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) models, quantitative prediction of intensity of heavy rainfall events and associated disasters has remained a challenge. Encouraged by compelling evidence of electrical influences on cloud/rain microphysical processes, here we propose a hypothesis that modif...

In the backdrop of extensive laboratory and theoretical evidence of broadening of the drop size distribution (DSD) of raindrops in the presence of electric field, quantification of the same in observed tropical clouds is lacking. Here this is quantified using the DSD measured by a microrain radar at 2,400-, 1,200-, and 600-m heights from the surfac...