Seasonal Predictability of Lightning Over the Global Hotspot Regions

Abstract

Lightning is one of the most powerful, all-pervasive atmospheric hazards. Lightning fatalities over India (Mahapatra et al., 2018; Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India (ADSI) Report, Govt. of India) result in severe societal and economic consequences as lightning affects aviation, telecommunication, agriculture, electricity, and many more sectors. Keeping in mind the lifetime injuries, physiological trauma, disabilities that are caused by lightning (e.g., Mahapatra et al., 2018;Singh and Singh, 2015), an accurate or better formulation of predicting lightning activities is of utmost significance. The major question asked here is whether the global hotspots of lightning activities across the globe are associated with the remote forcing for example, El Niño and Southern oscillation (ENSO), Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO), North Atlantic oscillation (NAO), Atlantic multidecadal oscillation (AMO), and extra tropics (ET).The seasonal forecasting of hail and tornado occurrence, which are the severe weather phenomena associated with the deep convective systems are examined over the United States of America (Elsner & Widen, 2014;Wu et al., 2011). Lightning activity is also a typical phenomenon of severe weather characterized by strong convection (van den Broeke et al., 2005), where instability, strong vertical updraft, wind shear, and availability of moisture are the primary conditions. The higher predictability of tropical climate than extra tropics was laid

Seasonal and Regional Distribution of Lightning Fraction Over Indian Subcontinent

“…Hence, the strong vertical updraft lofts a large quantity of graupel particles at a higher altitude. The short‐lived and large‐scale organized convection during pre‐monsoon and monsoon, respectively, are also responsible for this region's high lightning flash rate (Kamra & Ramesh Kumar, 2021; Mallick et al., 2022). The high‐value of CAPE plays an important role in generating high lightning producing intense thunderstorms over this region in monsoon (Murugavel et al., 2014), which may produce high IC flash rates and favors a very high Z ratio. The northeastern part of India (Region 3) shows a low value of Z ratios in monsoon (around 0.5–3.5) and pre‐monsoon (around 1.5–4.5).…”

“…However, limited studies assess the Z ratio and its spatial and seasonal variability over the Indian subcontinent. Moreover, recent studies (Mallick et al., 2022) have shown that lightning‐related loss of human lives and loss of properties primarily happens during the monsoon season in the Indian region. Moreover, the higher orographic Himalayan region in the northern belt of the Indian region also influences the intense lightning activity seasonally.…”

Role of mean, variability and teleconnection of clouds behind Indian summer monsoon rainfall

“…Girishkumar and Ravichandran (2012) have shown the influence of ENSO on tropical cyclone (TC) activity (frequency, genesis location and intensity) in the Bay of Bengal (BoB). It is also shown that ENSO has the strongest relationship with lightning activity (Dowdy, 2016; Mallick et al, 2022; Muñoz et al, 2016). During synoptic‐scale events (i.e., lows, depression, cyclones, etc.)…”

A machine learning approach for prediction of seasonal lightning density in different lightning regions of India

“…Both the large and short scale climatic drivers were reported to have visible impact on lightning over north western Venezuela which happens to have the highest annual lightning rate (Munoz et al ., 2016). Particularly over lightning hot‐spots like India, the lightning activity has been reported to be very well predictable by slowly varying global predictors (Mallick et al ., 2022).…”