High-resolution climatology of lightning characteristics within Central Europe
- PDF / 3,074,580 Bytes
- 10 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 3 Downloads / 182 Views
ORIGINAL PAPER
High-resolution climatology of lightning characteristics within Central Europe Kathrin Wapler
Received: 4 March 2013 / Accepted: 10 September 2013 / Published online: 1 October 2013 Ó Springer-Verlag Wien 2013
Abstract A 6-year analysis (including data of 36 million strokes) of the spatial and temporal occurrence of lightning strokes in Germany and neighbouring areas is presented. The analysis on a high-resolution grid with spatial resolution of 1 km allows assessing the local risk of lightning and studying local effects, e.g. the influence of orography on the occurrence of thunderstorms. The analysis reveals spatial and temporal patterns: the highest number of lightning strokes occurs in the pre-alpine region of southern Germany, further local maxima exists in low mountain ranges. The lowest number of lightning strokes is present in areas of the North Sea and Baltic Sea. Despite a high yearto-year variability of lightning rates, on average a clear annual cycle (maximum June to August) and diurnal cycle (maximum in the afternoon) are present. In addition to this well-known annual and diurnal pattern, the analysis shows that those are intertwined: the diurnal cycle has an annual cycle, visible in the time of daily maximum which occurs later in the afternoon in summer compared to spring and autumn. Furthermore, the annual cycle of lightning is varying geographically, e.g. offshore and coastal regions show a lower amplitude of the annual cycle and a later maximum (autumn) compared to inland (mountainous) regions. In addition, the annual and diurnal cycles of lightning attributes are analysed. The analysis reveals rising height of inner-cloud lightning during the year with a maximum in late summer.
Responsible editor: C. Simmer. K. Wapler (&) Atmospheric Dynamics and Predictability Branch, Hans-Ertel-Centre for Weather Research, Deutscher Wetterdienst, Offenbach, Germany e-mail: [email protected]
1 Introduction Lightning might cause fatalities, injuries and damages. Thus, thunderstorms, including accompanying phenomena, such as gusts, hail, heavy precipitation or tornadoes, pose a significant threat to life, property and economy. Therefore, a detailed knowledge of the occurrence of thunderstorms is essential for the general public as well as special users like emergency services and aviation. The general distribution of thunderstorms on the global scale is well known (Christian et al. 2003). However, there is still much to learn about the frequency and intensity of thunderstorms and its temporal and spatial occurrence. A high-resolution climatology enables a better understanding of thunderstorm occurrence and may be used for risk assessment as well as support the development of nowcasting and forecasting systems. Some analysis of the occurrence of convective systems, favourable environmental parameters or severe weather events have been performed. Morel and Senesi (2002) made a statistic of mesoscale convective systems (MCS) in Europe. Their analysis reveals an increase in the occurrence of MCS fr
Data Loading...
