Phys.org August 20, 2024
Researchers at James Madison University investigated thunderstorm environments in two distinct geographic regions to assess the aerosol and thermodynamic environments surrounding thunderstorm initiation. 12-years of cloud-to-ground (CG) lightning flash data were used to reconstruct thunderstorms occurring in a 225 km radius centered on the Washington, D·C. and Kansas City Metropolitan Regions. A total of 196,836 and 310,209 thunderstorms were identified for Washington, D.C. and Kansas City, MO. Merging hourly meteorological and aerosol data with the thunderstorm event database they found that warm season thunderstorm environments in benign synoptic conditions were considerably different in thermodynamics, aerosol properties, and aerosol concentrations in these regions. However, thunderstorm intensity, as measured by flash counts appeared regulated by similar thermodynamic-aerosol relationships despite the differences in their ambient environments. They concluded that in thunderstorm initiation environments there are statistically significant positive relationships between convective available potential energy (CAPE) and flash counts. And aerosol concentration appears to be a more important quantity than particle size for lightning augmentation… read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
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