Abstract:After a careful rethink on short range forecast of the northern Henan severe rainstorm on 9 July 2016, we found that there existed obvious alternate growing and merging of convective clouds during this rainstorm event involving interaction of meso small scale systems. As important guidance, all global mo dels, including deterministic and ensemble ones, failed to provide effective forecasts or hints in advance for this event. High resolution regional models and rapid refresh systems performed better and could help forecasters to predict heavy or very heavy rainfall events in northern Henan 12 h or 6 h earlier. Reasons for the forecast failure of this severe rainstorm process are that forecasters relied too much on global models and were lack of experience on high resolution model application or confidence in products from high resolution models. Only more comprehensive trainings on high resolution model for forecasters before putting them into use could forecasters maximize their operational potential. Applying more probabilistic products gradually in QPF decision process would meet the trend of technological advance and could provide more effective supports for heavy or extreme rainfall forecasting.