A Review of Thunderstorm Trends across Southern Ontario, Canada

Abstract

Despite their potential impact, trends in thunderstorm occurrence in Canada have not received scientific scrutiny, one of the reasons for this likely being lack of data availability. A previous study showed thunderstorm observations at eight staffed weather stations in southern Ontario, Canada, to be accurate for distances within 10 km. We used hourly thunderstorm data from these stations and one additional station to determine whether a trend exists in the thunderstorm record in this region. A Mann-Kendall test and Theil-Sen approach determined that although some stations do have trends in number of thunderstorm hours per year over this time, a consistent increase in the number of thunderstorms that might be expected in a warming climate is not seen. Daily precipitation totals and maximum wind gust speeds were also used as proxies for thunderstorm intensity, neither of which confirmed an increase in the intensity of thunderstorms at these sites over the time period.