An Analysis of Total Lightning Flash Rates Over Florida

Abstract

AbstractAlthough Florida is known as the “Sunshine State”, it also contains the greatest lightning flash densities in the United States. Flash density has received considerable attention in the literature, but lightning flash rate has received much less attention. We use data from the Earth Networks Total Lightning Network (ENTLN) to produce a 5 year (2010–2014) set of statistics regarding total flash rates over Florida and adjacent regions. Instead of tracking individual storms, we superimpose a 0.2° × 0.2° grid over the study region and count both cloud‐to‐ground (CG) and in‐cloud (IC) flashes over 5 min intervals. Results show that the distribution of total flash rates is highly skewed toward small values, whereas the greatest rate is ~185 flashes min−1. Greatest average annual flash rates (~3 flashes min−1) are located near Orlando. The southernmost peninsula, North Florida, and the Florida Panhandle exhibit smaller average annual flash rates (~1.5 flashes min−1). Large flash rates >~ 100 flashes min−1 can occur during any season, at any time during the 24 h period, and at any location within the domain. However, they are most likely during the afternoon and early evening in East Central Florida during the spring and summer months.