Characteristics of Typhoon Eyewalls According to World Wide Lightning Location Network Data

Abstract

Abstract Methods for the estimation of typhoon eyewall characteristics (the center location, the radius and the width, and radii of inner and outer boundaries) based on World Wide Lightning Location Network (WWLLN) data are presented and discussed in this work. The center locations, the eyewall radii, and inner boundary radii estimated from WWLLN data for the typhoons of the northwestern Pacific from 2011 to 2015 were compared with the typhoon centers, radii of maximum winds, and the radii of the eyes obtained from Advanced Scatterometer (ASCAT) wind data, the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) archives, and the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) archives. It is shown that the eyewall characteristics estimates based on the lightning discharge data are most closely related to characteristics of the ASCAT wind speed fields, and the radii of the eyewalls and their inner boundaries are linearly related to the radii of maximum winds and the radii of the eyes, with correlation coefficients reaching approximately 0.9 and 0.8, respectively. It was shown that the distances between locations of the eyewalls and typhoon centers estimated according to the WWLLN and those of the ASCAT, JMA, and JTWC data on average were 19, 16, and 17 km, respectively. The eyewall widths varied from 15 to 69 km, with an average of ~30 km.