Abstract
Lightning, a climate-related highly localized natural phenomenon, claims lives and damage properties. These losses could only be reduced by the identification of active seasons and regions of lightning. The present study identifies and correlates the lightning-prone regions with the number of casualties reported over India at the state/union territory level. The seasonal and monthly composite satellite data of Lightning Imaging Sensor for the duration of 16 years (1998–2013) have been analyzed in this study for the identification of the major lightning-prone seasons and regions over India. The casualties due to lightning have also been estimated using data from Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India, National Crime Record Bureau report of India. The spatial distribution analysis reveals that lightning occurs mostly in hilly regions over India throughout the year (26 flash/sq. km/yr) and, however, causes lesser casualties because of the sparse population over the hilly terrain. The seasonal analysis reveals the most lightning phenomena occur during the pre-monsoon period (40–45 flash/sq. km/yr) over the northeast region of India. During the winter period, the lightning dominates over the northern parts of India such as Jammu and Kashmir. The state-wise casualties’ study reveals that maximum casualties are reported in Madhya Pradesh (313 deaths), Maharashtra (281 deaths) and Orissa (255 deaths) on an average per annum. The favorable climatic conditions, such as availability of moisture content, unstable atmosphere and strong convection, cause severe cases of lightning over the regions of Orissa and Maharashtra.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Albrecht R, Goodman S, Buechler D, Blakeslee R, Christian H (2016) LIS 0.1 Degree very high resolution gridded lightning climatology data collection. Data sets available online [https://ghrc.nsstc.nasa.gov/pub/lis/climatology/LIS/] from the NASA Global Hydrology Resource Center DAAC, Huntsville, Alabama, USA
Albrecht RI, Goodman SJ, Buechler DE, Blakeslee RJ, Christian HJ (2016b) Where are the lightning hotspots on Earth? Bull Am Meteorol Soc 97(11):2051–2068
Aslar AK, Soran A, Yidiz Y (2001) Epidemiology, morbidity, mortality and treatment of lightning injuries in a Turkish burns unit. Int J ClinPract 55:502–504
Bhardwaj P, Singh O, Kumar D (2017) Spatial and temporal variations in thunderstorm casualties over India Singapore. J Trop Georg 38(3):293–312
Boccippio DJ, Goodman SJ, Heckman S (2000) Regional differences in tropical lightning distributions. J Appl Meteorol 39(12):2231–2248
Cecil DJ, Buechler DE, Blakeslee RJ (2014) Gridded lightning climatology from TRMM-LIS and OTD: dataset description. Atmos Res 135:404–414
Christian HJ, Blakeslee RJ, GoodmanS, Mach DM (2000) Algorithm theoretical basis document (ATBD) for the lightning imaging sensor (LIS)
Christian HJ, Blakeslee RJ, Boccippio DJ, Boeck WL, Buechler DE, Driscoll KT, Stewart MF (2003) Global frequency and distribution of lightning as observed from space by the optical transient detector. J Geophys Res Atmos 108(D1):ACL-4
Cummins KL, Krider EP, Malone MD (1998) The US National Lightning Detection Network/sup TM/and applications of cloud-to-ground lightning data by electric power utilities. IEEE Trans Electromagn Compat 40(4):465–480
Curran EB, Holle RL, López RE (2000) Lightning casualties and damages in the United States from 1959 to 1994. J Clim 13(19):3448–3464
Dewan A, Hossain MF, Rahman MM, Yamane Y, Holle RL (2017) Recent lightning-related fatalities and injuries in Bangladesh. Weather Clim Soc 9:575–589
Dowdy AJ (2016) Seasonal forecasting of lightning and thunderstorm activity in tropical and temperate regions of the world. Sci Rep 6:20874
Gomes C, AbKadir MZA (2011) A theoretical approach to estimate the annual lightning hazards on human beings. Atmos Res 101(3):719–725
Holle RL, Cooper MA (2016) Lightning-caused deaths and injuries at schools. In: Preprints of the 33rd international conference on lightning protection, Estoril, pp 25–30
Holle RL, Murphy MJ (2017) Lightning over three large tropical lakes and the Strait of Malacca: exploratory analyses. Mon Weather Rev 145(11):4559–4573
India: The Impact of Climate Change to 2030,A Commissioned Research Report, Special Report, NIC 2009, April 2009. https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/climate2030_india.pdf
Jayawardena W, Fernando M, Sonnadara DUJ (2014) Satellite observation of lightning activities over Sri Lanka. In: Proceedings of the technical sessions, Institute of Physics, Sri Lanka, vol 30, pp 61–66
Kandalgaonkar SS, Tinmaker MIR, Kulkarni JR, Nath A (2003) Diurnal variation of lightning activity over the Indian region. Geophys Res Lett. https://doi.org/10.1029/2003GL018005
Kandalgaonkar SS, Tinmaker MIR, Kulkarni JR, Nath A, Kulkarni MK, Trimbake HK (2005) Spatio-temporal variability of lightning activity over the Indian region. J Geophys Res Atmos. https://doi.org/10.1029/2004JD005631
Lal DM, Pawar SD (2009) Relationship between rainfall and lightning over central Indian region in monsoon and premonsoon seasons. Res Atmos 92(4):402–410
Lal DM, Ghude SD, Mahakur M, Waghmare RT, Tiwari S, Srivastava MK, Meena GS, Chate DM (2018) Relationship between aerosol and lightning over Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP) India. Clim Dyn 50(9–10):3865–3884
Mansell ER, Ziegler CL, Bruning EC (2010) Simulated electrification of a small thunderstorm with two-moment bulk microphysics. J AtmosSci 67(1):171–194
Mills BD, Unrau L, Pentelow K (2010) Spring Assessment of lightning-related damage and disruption in Canada. Nat Hazards 52(2):481–499
Mulder MBL, Msalu T, Caro J (2012) Salerno remarkable rates of lightning strike mortality in Malawi. PLoS ONE 7(1) Article e29281
Mushtaq F, Lala MGN, Anand A (2018) Spatio-temporal variability of lightning activity over J&K region and its relationship with topography, vegetation cover, and absorbing aerosol index (AAI). J Atmos Sol-Terr Phys 179:281–292
Nath A, Manohar GK, Dani KK, Devara PCS (2009) A study of lightning activity over land and oceanic regions of India. J Earth Syst Sci 118(5):467
National Crime Records Bureau (2015) http://ncrb.gov.in
Okafor UV (2005) Lightning and acute renal failure: a review. Ren Fail 27:129–134
Pawar SD, Lal DM, Murugavel P (2012) Lightning characteristics over central India during Indian summer monsoon. Res Atmos 106:44–49
Penki RK, Kamra AK (2013) Lightning distribution with respect to the monsoon trough position during the Indian summer monsoon season. J Geophys Res Atmos 118(10):4780–4787
Ranalkar MR, Chaudhari HS (2009) Seasonal variation of lightning activity over the Indian subcontinent. Meteorolatmos Phys 104(1–2):125–134
Singh O, Singh J (2015) Lightning fatalities over India: 1979–2011. Meteorol Appl 22(4):770–778
Wetli Kerauno CV (1996) Pathology: an analysis of 45 fatalities. J Forensic Med Pathol 17(2):89–98
Whitecomb D, Martinez JA, Daberkow D (2002) Lightning injuries. South Med J 95:13314
https://data.gov.in/catalog/stateut-wise-distribution-accidental-deaths-natural-causes
Acknowledgements
We gratefully thank National Crime Report Bureau (NCRB) for providing the various natural disaster data over India and also thank the Earth Observatory System and Science Programme for providing the TRMM/LIS data. We would also like to acknowledge Dr. D M Lal for his kind support through out the study work.The funding support from MoES project (MoES/16/18/2017-RDEAS) is acknowledged.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Yadava, P.K., Soni, M., Verma, S. et al. The major lightning regions and associated casualties over India. Nat Hazards 101, 217–229 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-020-03870-8
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-020-03870-8