Weekly cycle of lightning: Evidence of storm invigoration by pollution

Thomas L. Bell, Daniel Rosenfeld, Kyu Myong Kim

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86 Scopus citations

Abstract

We have examined summertime 1998-2009 U.S. lightning data from the National Lightning Detection Network (NLDN) to look for weekly cycles in lightning activity. As was found by Bell et al. (2008) for rain over the southeast U.S., there is a significant weekly cycle in afternoon lightning activity that peaks in the middle of the week there. The weekly cycle appears to be reduced over population centers. Lightning activity peaks on weekends over waters near the SE U.S. The statistical significance of weekly cycles over the western half of the country is generally small. We found no evidence of a weekly cycle of synoptic-scale forcing that might explain these patterns. The lightning behavior is entirely consistent with the explanation suggested by Bell et al. (2008) for the cycles in rainfall and other atmospheric data from the SE U.S., that aerosols can cause storms to intensify in humid, convectively unstable environments.

Original languageEnglish
Article numberL23805
JournalGeophysical Research Letters
Volume36
Issue number23
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 2009

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