Abstract
Abstract. Total lightning (TL) data have been found to provide valuable information about the internal dynamics of a thunderstorm allowing conclusions about its further development as well as indicating potential of thunderstorm-related severe weather at the ground. This paper investigates electrical discharge correlations of strokes and flashes with respect to the temporal evolution of thunderstorms in case studies as well as by statistical means. The recently developed algorithm li-TRAM (tracking and monitoring of lightning cells, Meyer et al., 2013) has been employed to track and monitor thunderstorms based on three-dimensionally resolved TL data provided as stroke events by the European lightning location network LINET. From statistical investigation of 863 suited thunderstorm life cycles, the cell area turned out to correlate well with (a) the total discharge rate, (b) the in-cloud (IC) discharge rate, and (c) the mean IC discharge height per lightning cell as identified by li-TRAM. All three parameter correlations consistently show an abrupt change in discharge characteristics around a cell area of 170 km2. Statistical investigations supported by the comparison of three case studies – selected to represent a single storm, a multi-cell and a supercell – strongly suggest that the correlation functions include the temporal evolution as well as the storm type. With the help of volumetric radar data, it can also be suggested that the well-defined break observed at 170 km2 marks the region where the transition occurs from short-lived and rather simple structured single storm cells to better organized, more persistent, and more complex structured thunderstorm forms, e.g. multi-cells and supercells. All three storm types experience similar discharge characteristics during their growing and dissipating phases. However, while the poorly organized and short-lived cells preferentially remain small during a short mature phase, mainly the more persistent thunderstorm types develop to sizes above 170 km2 during a pronounced mature stage. At that stage they exhibit on average higher discharge rates at higher altitudes as compared with matured single cells. With the maximum stroke distance set to 10 km and a flash duration set to 1 s, the parameterization functions found for the stroke rate as a function of the cell area have been transformed to a flash rate. The presented study suggests that, with respect to the storm type, stroke and flash correlations can be parameterized. There is also strong evidence that parameterization functions include the time parameter, so that altogether TL stroke information has good potential to pre-estimate the further evolution (nowcast) of a currently observed storm in an object-oriented thunderstorm nowcasting approach.
Highlights
Ocean ScienceThe imposing appearance of lightning has always prompted the attempt to understand the phenomenon and therewith been a topic for natural sciences
25th and 75th percentile and respective parameterization functions. (c) Mean Total lightning (TL) and IC stroke numbers of figure (a) with their 25th and 75th percentile on linear scale. (d) Number statistic of cell entries underlying the analyses shown in figures (a) to (c)
This paper investigates the temporal evolution of lightning characteristics of thunderstorms in terms of physically meaningful cell entities
Summary
Ocean ScienceThe imposing appearance of lightning has always prompted the attempt to understand the phenomenon and therewith been a topic for natural sciences. With the ongoing evolution of lightning detection systems, lightning data experience more and more attention in mSetoeolirdoloEgiacarltahnd climatological applications. One focus is on the use of lightning data to identify and pursue (electrically active) thunderstorms and Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union. Meyer et al.: 3-D lightning parameters in thunderstorm tracking to look for similarities in their electrical evolution, which can be used to improve the prediction of their development (nowcasting). Another focus is to understand the physical processes, which lead to electrical discharges in the cloud, in order to reproduce realistic lightning flashes in weather models
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
