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Satellite-based observation of lightning climatology over Nepal

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Abstract

The lightning climatology over Nepal is analysed in detail for the first time. For the analysis, we utilised the satellite-based lightning imaging sensor data for the period from 1998 to 2013. A comparison of these climatological results is also performed with two ground-based lightning detection networks, namely, the World Wide Lightning Location Network and the Global Lightning Network for 3 yr from 2011 to 2013. On analysing the data obtained from the three sources, we conclude that the months of April and May are extremely vulnerable in the perspective of lightning hazards in Nepal, in contrast to the results reported previously which indicated that the maximum lightning activity occurred in the month of June. The central and eastern regions of the country receive the majority of lightning strikes during the months of April and May. The present finding is supported by the thunderstorm frequency data obtained from the disaster Information Management System, Nepal and also from thunder-day data from NOAA.

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Acknowledgements

We cordially thank Prof. Robert H Holzworth, University of Washington, USA for the provision of the WWLLN data, NASA GSFC for the LIS lightning data WSI for the provision of the GLN data. The authors are thankful to Disaster Information Management System (Desinventar) for giving access to the thunderstorm data over Nepal and also the National Center for Atmospheric Research for given NCEP/NCAR reanalysis vector wind data at a different pressure level along with surface temperature, relative humidity, CAPE and CIN. The authors also thank the NASA Earth System Science for providing us the valuable Cloudsat data. The work was supported by the NAM S&T Centre by providing research training fellowship for developing country scientists (RTF-DCS) – Award of Fellowship for 2016–2017 to the second author of this manuscript, the LDN project, funded by the Society for Applied Microwave Electronics Engineering & Research (SAMEER), Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, Government of India and DST-FIST fund reference Ref.SR/FST/PSI-191/2014, Government of India.

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  1. Department of Physics, Tripura University, Suryamaninagar, Tripura, India

    Kumarjit Saha, Narayan Prasad Damase, Trisanu Banik, Bapan Paul, Barin Kumar De & Anirban Guha

  2. Department of Physics, Amrit Science College, Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu, Nepal

    Narayan Prasad Damase & Shriram Sharma

  3. North Eastern Space Applications Centre, Umiam, Meghalaya, India

    Trisanu Banik

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  1. Kumarjit Saha
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Correspondence to Anirban Guha.

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Communicated by A K Sahai

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Saha, K., Damase, N.P., Banik, T. et al. Satellite-based observation of lightning climatology over Nepal. J Earth Syst Sci 128, 221 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12040-019-1239-x

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