Diurnal and Spatial Variability of Lightning Activity in Northeastern Colorado and Central Florida during the Summer

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Lightning location data from northeastern Colorado and central Florida for the summer months of 1983 have been studied to ascertain the diurnal development of spatial distributions of flash frequencies. In both locales, a clearly identifiable influence was found of the underlying topography and resulting diurnal circulations on the time and place of occurrence of lightning ground strikes. Although both locations are strongly convective, lightning exhibited a very large day-to-day variability, since most locations had no lightning on half the days. The study also emphasizes the utility of flash data, once carefully corrected, in studying both the characteristics of lightning and the patterns of topographically induced convection. In Colorado, the total summer flash activity was concentrated just east of the Continental Divide from Longs Peak southward, then eastward along the north side of the much lower Palmer Lake Divide. Two maxima of seven flashes per km2 were located within this peak of activ... Abstract Lightning location data from northeastern Colorado and central Florida for the summer months of 1983 have been studied to ascertain the diurnal development of spatial distributions of flash frequencies. In both locales, a clearly identifiable influence was found of the underlying topography and resulting diurnal circulations on the time and place of occurrence of lightning ground strikes. Although both locations are strongly convective, lightning exhibited a very large day-to-day variability, since most locations had no lightning on half the days. The study also emphasizes the utility of flash data, once carefully corrected, in studying both the characteristics of lightning and the patterns of topographically induced convection. In Colorado, the total summer flash activity was concentrated just east of the Continental Divide from Longs Peak southward, then eastward along the north side of the much lower Palmer Lake Divide. Two maxima of seven flashes per km2 were located within this peak of activ...

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: