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Detail study of time evolution of three thunderstorm events in Tehran area using observations and numerical simulations for lightning nowcasting

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Abstract

The first hourly observations of thunderclouds and associated lightning events for Tehran area are presented in this paper. Hourly data of Cloud to Ground (CG) lightning events in Tehran area is provided by The World Wide Lightning Location Network (WWLLN). Several indices such as Convective Available Potential Energy (CAPE) and CAPE times total precipitation are examined. Three out of 30 lightning events between 2009 and 2013 in Tehran area with various degrees of agreement with the introduced proxies are investigated in detail using numerical simulations and observations. The spatial correlation and temporal correlation of the lightning strikes are compared with the indices with the goal of developing lightning prediction index as well as a better interpretation of CAPE spatial map. The storm cell area and associated CG lightning are studied to determine the formation, growth, and dissipation phases of the thunderstorm. A physical picture of the observations is obtained and explained using the numerical simulations in this paper as a method for storm nowcasting. This includes an estimation of storm distribution, strike polarity, and complicated structure formation such as anvil, approximate strike location, density, as well as approximate velocity, and direction of propagation to some degrees. To understand the physical properties of the observed treatment of the studied lightning occurrences, numerical simulations were conducted using the WRF-ELEC model. In this regard, the temporal evolution of the net charge, the electric field, and radar reflectivity during the lightning activity was investigated.

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the World Wide Lightning Location Network (http://wwlln.net), a collaboration among over 50 universities and institutions, for providing the lightning location data used in this paper. The WWLLN data can be found in the link http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3945962. The CAPE, total precipitation ,and convective and large-scale rain rate data are obtained from the link of https://cds.climate.copernicus.eu/cdsapp

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Space Physics, Institute of Geophysics, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

    A. Mahmoudian & M. Gharaylou

  2. Department of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Washington Seattle, Seattle, USA

    R. Holzworth

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  1. A. Mahmoudian
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  2. M. Gharaylou
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  3. R. Holzworth
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Correspondence to M. Gharaylou.

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The first comparison of CAPE×TP index with hourly distribution of CG lightning strikes for indicating the probability of flashes. Lightning cell tracking can be used to determine the convective cell formation, growth and dissipation. Numerical simulations validate that CAPE map can be implemented to predict anvil formation and high intensity lightning flashes.

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Mahmoudian, A., Gharaylou, M. & Holzworth, R. Detail study of time evolution of three thunderstorm events in Tehran area using observations and numerical simulations for lightning nowcasting. Nat Hazards 109, 1481–1508 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-021-04886-4

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