<p>This study examines the multiscale processes leading to three heavy rainfall (HR) episodes over Beijing and its periphery during 19‒21 July 2016. The orographic lifting of lower-tropospheric southeasterly flows of warm-moist air triggered convective lines along the foothills of Mt. Taihang, resulting in HR over the mountainous region during the first HR episode. The southeasterly flows were then enhanced by the formation of a cold vortex and latent heat release associated with HR during the second HR episode. It was the warm-frontal forcing that released conditional symmetric instability and the movement of convective rainbands across similar areas that accounted for high hourly rainfall rates over most of Beijing during the second HR episode. As the cold vortex and the associated warm front advanced northward, the southeasterly moisture flux into Beijing decreased, except in southern Beijing, where intense convection still continued. An analysis of the radar-observed polarimetric variables reveals that cold-rain microphysical processes dominated the first HR episode, with a larger proportion of ice crystals above the melting level in conjunction with greater height of the maximum upward motion, as compared to those during later episodes. In contrast, the second and third episodes were influenced by the stronger advection of warm-moist air with the lower altitude of the maximum upward motion, which favored warm-rain microphysical processes with increasing raindrop sizes toward the ground. Therefore, there was an increased concentration of larger raindrops in the lower troposphere. However, the raindrops during the third episode were relatively smaller than those in the second episode, primarily due to weaker upward motion, while the presence of a dry layer in the midtroposphere played a minor role.</p>