Relationships between thunderstorm cloud-top temperature and lightning initiation

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Title: Relationships between thunderstorm cloud-top temperature and lightning initiation
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Subject: Lightning.
Description: Predicting the timing and location of lightning initiation is a challenging but important task for operational meteorology, as many people are killed or injured each year by lightning. The advent of the GOES-‐16 satellite offers the potential for new answers to this challenge. This study takes advantage of newly available high-‐resolution infrared imagery from GOES-‐16, along with lightning data from ground-‐based detection systems, in order to determine any features or trends that might help predict the onset of lightning in the cloud. Using an operational NWS AWIPS workstation, cloud temperature data for over 60 thunderstorm cells in four regions of the CONUS were collected at 5-‐minute intervals and entered into spreadsheets, along with 5-‐minute total lightning counts. The data collection period for each storm was 30 minutes before lightning initiation to 30 minutes after. Preliminary results indicate that lightning initiation in storms over the US Northeast and Midwest occurs with cloud temperatures in the range -‐20 °C to -‐40 °C, averaging about -‐30 °C. However for storms in the Southeast, Great Plains and Rockies the corresponding temperatures were colder, averaging about -‐40 °C to -‐45 °C. The period of most rapid cooling typically begins a few minutes before lightning initiation but also continues for some time after. Further efforts to relate lightning initiation temperature to environmental factors have thus far been generally inconclusive., Honors Thesis Advisor, Dr. Mario Majcen.
Publisher
Contributor: Haegele, Aaron N. (Author), California University of Pennsylvania. Honors Program.
Date: 2017-04-12
Type: Text
Format
Identifier: cali:762
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