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To explore the applicability of deep learning methods to radar rainfall nowcasting and flood forecasting, U-Net, Attention-Unet and TransAtt-Unet are used to carry out rainfall nowcasting. The nowcasted rainfall results are used as inputs to the HEC-HMS hydrological model for flood forecasting. The results show that with a 1-hour lead time, Attention-Unet has the best performance in nowcasting heavy rainfall with a short duration, and the relative errors in the simulated flood peak and runoff volume by the nowcasted rainfall of TransAtt-Unet are less than 20%. Each deep learning model has a good forecasting accuracy for rainfall and flood events with large magnitudes. The rainfall intensity, rainfall totals, flood peaks and runoff volumes are significantly underestimated with a 2-hour lead time, with U-Net achieving relatively good rainfall nowcasting. The 1-hour lead time radar rainfall nowcasting and flood forecasting based on deep learning can provide a scientific reference for watershed flood prevention and mitigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]