Abstract
The elucidation of characteristics of cumulonimbus clouds that cause lightning is important for predicting thunderstorm development. These characteristics, with and without lightning, were observed during a day (in 2010) of severe thunderstorms and lightning in Japan and statistically analyzed using radar observations with cell tracking. Observed cells were categorized into a cell including cloud-to-ground lightning (CG) and intra-cloud lightning (CGIC), a cell containing only intra-cloud lightning (IC), and a cell without lightning (NoL). These cells were compared to the average and temporal evolution of radar observations. Out of the 265 cells generated, 103 were CGIC cells, 30 were IC cells, and 132 were NoL cells. Significant differences were detected between the averaged values of lifetime, size, echo top, vertically integrated liquid (VIL), maximum radar reflectivity, and radar reflectivity of each cell category, when the − 10 °C isotherm height was considered. The temporal evolution of CGIC cell characteristics revealed changes in radar reflectivity at 0 °C and − 10 °C that were synchronized with lightning activity. The VIL value was elevated only for CGIC cells and had the tendency to decrease with time as lightning activity. CGIC cells produced the highest echo top and maintained their height during their lifetime. To predict CG within 20 min using 35 dBZ radar reflectivity at − 30 °C as the criterion, a critical success index (CSI) of 0.82 and false alarm rate (FAR) of 0.64 were found to have the best prediction scores.
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Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank the Japan Metrological Agency observatory department for providing the cell-tracking data for the research purpose. We also wish to acknowledge Dr. Yoshinori Yamada in the Meteorological Research Institute and Prof. Yousei Hayashi of the University of Tsukuba for their helpful suggestions and comments. This work is part of a cooperative study of the University of Tsukuba and the MRI of the JMA. This work was partly supported by JSPS KAKENHI grant number 25350514. Generic Mapping Tools (GMT) were used for drawing the figures. The authors would like to thank Enago (www.enago.jp) for English language review.
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Hayashi, S., Nakaike, C. & Fujibe, F. Radar characteristics of summer thunderstorms in the Kanto Plain of Japan with and without cloud-to-ground lightning. Meteorol Atmos Phys 133, 233–244 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00703-020-00748-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00703-020-00748-z